Common Sen$e 



m 



'An Whist 



K-F- Foster 
1898 




Class. 
Book. 



PRESEXTKD 13Y 



FOSTER^S 



Common Sense in Whist 



BY THE AUTHOR OF 

Foster's "Whist Manual ; Foster's Complete Hoyle ; 
Foster's Whist Tactics, etc. 



3*(H^-^. ^ ^^^o-'fQA:^ 5Vlit^ 



t^'^ t^^ i^^ 



R, R FOSTER 

560 Hancock Street, Brooklyn, N» Y, 

1898 

All Rights Reserved 






Copyright, J898, 
By R. F* Foster. 



si, ■■ ,r -« ' 



CONTENTS. 



Preface, . . . . . 


7 


Introduction, . . ' . 


lO 


Tools of the Trade, 


15 


The Most Common Tools, 


17 


The Value of a Trump, 


21 


The Value of a Plain Suit, 


24 


First Principles, .... 


27 


Attack and Defence, 


2>Z 


The Two SystExMS, . 


37 


The Leads, .... 


39 


Perfect Hands, .... 


45 


Defective Hands, 


49 


Developing the Hands, . . 


54 


Avoiding Long-Suit Openings, 


63 


The Adversaries' Hands, 


66 


Inferences for Third Hand, 


71 


The Control of Suits, . 


79 


Cards of Re-entry, . 


85 


Management of Trumps, 


. 89 


Self-Protection, 


99 


Discards, ..... 


lor 


The Short-Suit Game, 


104 


Single-Honor Suits, 


108 


Worthless Suits, 


116 


Leading up to Strength, 


122 


Leading Aces, 


127 


The Third Hand, 


131 


The Second Hand, 


143 



Notice to Subscribers^ 



This Is the first edition of a work which is 
intended to be a whist-players' annual, some- 
thing on the plan of the books issued for the 
benefit of amateur photographers, giving the 
results of experience and investigation up to 
date. Next year the work will be entirely re- 
written, and will embody such modifications 
as may be suggested by the practical experi- 
ence of those who shall try the tactics out- 
lined in the present work, and will send to 
the author their criticisms on the various ele- 
ments of strategy herein touched upon. 

Only one thousand copies of this edition 
will be printed, and they will be sold entirely 
by subscription, $i a copy, which should be 
sent directly to the publisher, R. F. Foster, 
560 Hancock Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. Post- 
of^ce orders should be made payable to sub- 
station No. 26, Brooklyn. 



Preface* 



The literature of whist, up to the present 
time, is an accumulation of individual theo- 
ries, advanced by different authors at various 
periods, and most of these theories are simply 
guesses at the truth, without any attempt to 
demonstrate their foundation in fact. 

The author believes that the time is ripe 
for a book which shall deal with facts instead 
of theories, and which, instead of laying down 
certain rules to be blindly followed, although 
they may fit only about one hand in ten, will 
show that every hand is a problem in itself, 
the solution to wdiich must depend on the 
player's knowledge of probabilities and the 
exercise of his common sense, not on his be- 
lief in any particular theory. 

The curse of the modern player is that he 
is tied down by his adherence to some con- 
ventional system, which continually hampers 
him in his movements and prevents him from 
stepping aside to gather the tricks which lie 
in regions apart from the route mapped out 
for him by his system. In the following 



viii Preface. 

pages an attempt is made to show that the 
elements of success in whist are not in the se- 
lection of an ironclad system, but in the 
proper understanding of the uses and powers 
of the materials in the player's hands, and 
that whist can be played without resorting to 
artificial conventions of any kind. 

There is no situation at the whist table 
which is not governed by certain principles of 
play, and if a person is not sufficiently skillful 
to recognize the position or to select the 
principle which should apply, he is certainly 
not a good player, and no amount of direc- 
tion, artificially conveyed to him by his part- 
ner, will ever make him one, but will simply 
confirm him in his mediocrity. He will al- 
ways remain a pot-hunter, who cannot find 
the game and will not shoot until it is driven 
under his nose. Under such conditions, all 
the spirit of the sportsinan is suppressed, and 
all the pleasures of the chase are gone. 

Unfortunately, the very common impression 
has gone abroad that the common-sense game 
is a continual hunt for a cross-ruff, and that 
the original leads are confined to short suits 
and singletons. Any system of play which 
has such a theory as a basis is a fallacy, be- 
cause its success is against probability, the 
conditions favorable for a cross-ruff beine the 
exception and not the rule. 



Preface. ix 

The system which is outhned in this work 
is a complete departure from any of the 
methods so far published, all of which are 
founded upon the use of certain arbitrary con- 
ventions, the meaning of which must be pre- 
viously agreed upon between the partners. 
The present work is based upon the principle 
of giving the student a model hand, an ideal 
or standard of perfection in position, which 
he should strive to approach as closely as 
possible himself, and should endeavor to pre- 
vent the adversaries from securino-. With 
this ideal before him, he has a guiding princi- 
ple of play, which remains constant in all sorts 
and conditions of hands, enabling him in- 
stantly to recognize their merits or defects 
and to demonstrate them to his partner, thus 
securing the most perfect harmony in the 
advance toward a common goal. 



Introduction* 



The plan of the following work is compara- 
tively simple. It proceeds upon the logical 
principle that we should first ascertain facts 
and then reason upon them. 

The object in all whist play Is to win tricks. 
The majority of these tricks are won with 
certain high cards under certain conditions ; 
but as the conditions change the trick-taking 
powers of these cards must change with them. 
Until the exact conditions in any given hand 
are ascertained, one must play on the assump- 
tion that the most common or probable con 
dition is the one that exists, because he will 
be right In the majority of cases, although in 
some he will be entirely wrong. 

The facts to be ascertained then, are what 
cards win the majority of the tricks and under 
what conditions, so that these conditions 
being recognized by the players they may so 
manoeuvre as to secure the best results w'ith 
the trick-taking cards which their hands con- 
tain. In some hands, even under favorable 
conditions, they will not succeed in getting 



1 2 Introduction. 

the tricks which they are entitled to expect, 
while in others they will succeed in spite of 
the conditions turning- out to be decidedly 
against them. They must be satisfied if, in 
the majority of cases, they derive an advan- 
tage from playing always in accordance with 
probability, and they should not be discour- 
aged by an occasional reverse, however serious. 

The facts presented in the following pages 
are those which are true of the game as it is 
played to-day, and the author wishes it dis- 
tinctly understood that he does not present 
them as final or conclusive, because they 
simply represent the limitations of our present 
knowledge, investigation having been carried 
no further, and other and perhaps better 
methods still remaining totally untried. 

Many of the conclusions arrived at may 
hereafter be proved imsound, just as many of 
the theories which were regarded as settled a 
year or two ago have since been rejected, 
while others which were then looked upon as 
heresy are now^ accepted as gospel. The gen- 
eral tendency of modern whist is to follow the 
natural course of evolution, inventing syst(!ms 
which gradually approach a highly artificial 
condition, and then, almost as gradually, 
crumble into decay. 

Several years ago the whist players of 
America fell into the very serious error of 



Introduction, 13 

mistaking the means for the end, and they 
have persisted in that error to such an extent 
that it will probably take strong measures to 
correct it. With the pernicious example of 
American leads constantly before them they 
were taught to regard the giving of informa- 
tion as the chief aim in whist, and as a natural 
consequence they were not satisfied with the 
artificial system of showing number upon 
which these leads were based, but proceeded 
to invent countless other systems for showing 
endless other things. 

These systems have so multiplied during 
the past year or two that they must now be 
regarded as private conventions, based upon 
no principle of play, and intelligible only to 
those who have previously agreed upon their 
use and meaning. The fact that these systems 
have been made public In some form or other, 
or that they are explained to the adversaries 
In advance, does not alter the fact that they 
are private conventions, but rather proves it, 
because if they were not private, it would not 
be necessary to explain them, neither would it 
be necessary for partners to have a previous 
understanding that they would use them. 

To such an extent has this evil grown that 
It is only a question of time when those in 
control of whist affairs will find it necessary 
to put a stop to it. In so doing they will 



14 Introduction. 

place themselves in the same ridiculous posi- 
tion as those who import rabbits and then 
spend millions in their efforts to get rid of the 
pest. Our authorities — writers, teachers and 
officials — are largely responsible for the evil 
as it exists to-day, because they were the ones 
who originally encouraged and supported 
American leads, patronizing those who ad- 
vocated and taught them, and openly antag- 
onizing those who condemned them. Yet so 
blind are they to the fact that this pernicious 
system is the root of all the evils which they 
are now seeking to weed out that they actually 
propose to formulate an official system of play, 
with American leads as a basis, but which 
shall prohibit all other artificial methods of 
giving information except the trump signal. 
This is very much like the man who was so 
much annoyed at the increase of frogs in his 
fish pond that he ordered their extermination, 
but instructed his servants not to meddle with 
the pretty little fishes witli the small round 
heads and long slender tails. 



Tools of the Trade* 



In taking up any new occupation, the first 
thing to be learned is how to handle the tools 
of the trade, their strength and weakness, and 
the uses to which they should be applied. A 
person who does not know these things is 
like a man who pries corks out of a bottle 
with a penknife, or a woman who drives nails 
with the back of a hairbrush. 

Every error made at the whist table will be 
found to belong to one of two classes : the 
improper selection or the improper use of 
tools. In whist, the tools are certain combi- 
nations of cards and suits, and the player 
must learn how to use them under the vary- 
ing conditions of being leader, second, third 
or fourth hand. Which tools he will select 
for use upon certain occasions must depend 
upon his judgment of the situation, or the de- 
velopment during the play of the hand, and 
he must cultivate the faculty of distinguishing 
between situations which require different 
treatment. In forming his conclusions he 
should be guided by his own common sense 



1 6 Common Sense in Whist. 

and his knowledge of the solid principles of 
the game, and not by any system of arbitrary 
signals previously arranged upon between 
himself and his partner. 

The tools of the whist player which are 
useful for trick-taking purposes may be 
roughly divided into three classes : the trumps, 
the high cards in plain suits, and the small 
cards in lone suits. 

It is not proposed to trouble the reader 
with a list of technical terms, but it will be 
necessary to call attention to the fact that 
suits differ in two respects chiefly: in length 
and in strength. The length is judged by the 
number of cards, whether above or below the 
average in value ; the strength by the number 
of high cards the suit contains. In the follow- 
ing pages, when speaking of high cards or 
"honors," the A K O j lo will be meant, all 
cards below the lo being classed as *' small." 



The Most Common Tools, 



A good workman arranges his tools in such 
a- manner that he can readily reach those 
which are in common use, and a good whist 
player should mentally arrange and make him- 
self familiar with the combinations of cards 
which will m^ost frequently fall into his hands, 
giving especial preference to those which do 
the really effective work of the game. 

In order to show exactly how common each 
of these tools are, and to give the student an 
idea of their average or probable value, I have 
taken looo deals played in important trophy 
matches, and have picked out the number of 
times that the original leader held a certain 
number of cards in connection with a certain 
number of honors in each suit. 

Dr. Pole, in his ** Philosophy of Whist," p. 
126, has given us the number of times that a 
player will probably hold any given number 
of cards in a suit, the results being arrived at 
by calculation. He makes no division of suits 
accordinor to their strength in hi^h cards, but 
I have given his figures for the number of 



1 8 Common Sense in Whist, 

cards immediately under my own, in order to 
show how closely they agree. 

The results of this investigation are shown 
in the following table, the vertical columns of 
which show the number of cards in the suit ; 
the horizontal columns the number of honors, 
countinor the ten as one. 

Distribution of Cards and Honors in looo Deals, 



HONORS ARE 






CARDS IN SUIT. 






the A K Q J lo. 


O I 


2 


3 4 5 


6 


7 


Four Honors 


— — 


— 


- 6 12 


16 


8 


Three Honors 


- — 


_ 


28 86 124 


66 


20 


Two Honors 


- - 


84 


276 358 226 


52 


8 


One Honor 


- 142 


436 


592 390 106 


38 


4 


No Honor 


- j86 


328 


220 116 28 


- 


- 


Misshig Suits 


44 - 




- - - 


- 


- 


Totals : — 


44 328 


848 


1116 956 496 


172 


40 


Pole's figures : — 


48 320 


824 


I 148 956 500 


168 


36 



The point to which I particularly wish to 
call attention is the regularity with which the 
proportion between the number of cards and 
the number of honors in the suit is preserved. 
With four honors, suits of six cards are most 
common ; with three honors, suits of five 
cards, and so on down, until we find that the 
majority of suits that contain no card above a 
nine are two-card suits. 

Although figures may be dry reading, the 
student is asked to study this table carefully, 



The Most Common To As. 19 

because we shall have frequent occasion to 
refer to it when we come to discuss methods 
of play which are based on probability, and 
not on ascertained facts. When a player 
opens a suit in which he has at least five cards, 
for instance, the odds are three to one that 
he holds more than one honor, because of 
the 496 five-card suits that he will hold in 
1000 deals, there will be 362 that will contain 
two or more honors. 

The first lesson to be drawn from this table 
is that the combination which the whist player 
will find in his hand oftener than any other is 
a suit of three cards containing a single honor. 
Next to this he will hold suits of two and four 
cards containing single honors, and then suits 
of four cards with two honors, after which 
come the weak two-card suits. 

The table shows that a player will hold a 
suit of five cards or more about twice in every 
three hands. As the long-suit theory of whist 
is based chiefly on the importance of establish- 
ing such suits, it is interesting to observe that 
about one-sixth of all such suits contain at least 
both ace and king, and are practically already 
established. Another sixth are within one 
card of being established, leaving only about 
two out of three that need any playing before 
they are fit for active service as established 
suits. 



20 Conivion Sense in Whist, 

From this it might be assumed that these 
lonor suits are not worth the time and atten- 
tion bestowed upon tiiem and that the tools 
which require to be kept in good order and 
handled with care and dexterity, so as to get 
the best results from their use, are the weak 
suits ; suits of two or three cards with a sin- 
gle honor, and suits of three or four cards 
containing two honors, because such suits 
embrace nearly two-thirds of all a whist player 
will hold, and outnumber the unestablished 
suits of five or more cards in the proportion 
of seven to one. This would be true but for 
another consideration, which is that the com- 
binations of cards which are the most common 
are not the ones that take the most tricks. 
More tricks may be taken by one long suit, 
headed by a single honor, than would be prob- 
able with a hundred short suits headed by a 
nine. 

These considerations show that It will be 
necessary for us to investigate the probable 
trick-taking value of the cards as well as their 
most comimon distribution. 



The Value of a Trumps 



In ever}^ deal the whole fifty-two cards are 
distributed among the players, but only one- 
fourth of these cards can win tricks, because 
there are only thirteen tricks to be taken. A 
careful examination of any large number of 
hands will show that an average of six and a 
quarter tricks in every deal fall to the trumps. 
Of these, at least four must do so as a matter 
of course, because some player at the table 
must hold at least four trumps in every deal. 
This leaves nine tricks to be won with the 
remaining or scattered trumps and the plain 
suits, which is an average of two and a quar- 
ter tricks to each suit. As we shall see pres- 
ently, these nine tricks are divided in exactly 
that proportion, the scattered trumps being 
equal in value to one plain suit. 

The figures in the following table are com- 
piled from looo deals played in trophy 
matches. The first column gives the card, 
the second the number of tricks won in 
the trump suit itself when trumps were led. 
The next column gives the number of tricks 



22 Coimnoji Sense in Whist. 

won by ruffing plain suits. The last two 
columns give the totals and the percentage of 
value of the various trump cards in tenths. 

Value of Trump Cards. 





MADE 


TRUMPED 




VALUE. 


CARD. 


IN SUIT. 


WITH. 


TOTAL, 


IN TENTHS, 


A 


948 


52 


1000 


10 


K 


738 


126 


864 


9 


Q 


542 


170 


712 


7 


J 


ZZ"^ 


276 


606 


6 


lO 


332 


191 


523 


5 


Small 


299 


2241 


2545 


3 



Totals: 3194 3056 6250 6| 

The last column is not exact, but is suffi- 
ciently so to show the proportions. As there 
are eight small trumps, the total of 2545 must 
be divided by eight, which gives us the average 
value of a small trump as about three-tenths 
of a trick. 

It should be noticed that almost as many 
tricks are made by ruffing as are made in the 
trump suit itself. The largest number of 
tricks falling to the trumps in one hand, of 
which w^e have any record, was in deal No 31, 
table 2, in the A. W. L. finals at the congress 
of 1895 ; see records of the fifth congress. 
Only three tricks were taken in plain suits, 
the remaining ten being trumped. 

The lesson to be drawn from this table is, 



The Value of a Trump. 23 

that if you exhaust the trumps by leading 
them the average value of the trump suit is re- 
duced, and the average value of the plain suits 
is increased. If the trumps are allowed to 
make separately, the additional value of the 
trump suit is greatly increased, and the 
chances of making even the average number 
of tricks out of a plain suit are very much 
diminished. Careful examination has shown 
that in almost every case in which no player 
has led trumps or ruffed in with them up to 
the fifth trick, only one of the remaining eight 
tricks has been won in a plain suit. In many 
cases in which the trumps have been led to 
bring in one or two cards of a long suit, it 
will be found that more tricks might have 
been made by simply taking the tricks with 
the high cards of the plain suit and making 
the trumps separately. Many of our best 
players lose more tricks in the process of ex- 
hausting the trumps than they can possibly 
get back in the plain suits after the trumps 
are gone. 



The Value of a Plain Suit* 



Now let us look at the trick-takino- value of 
the various cards in the plain suits. The 
figures are for looo of each of the plain-suit 
cards higher than the nine and for the 8000 
smaller cards. The last column gives the 
approximate trick-taking value of the cards in 
tenths. 



Value of Plain-suit Ca?'ds. 



NUMBER OF TRICKS WON, 



WHEN LED. 



NOT LED. 



VALUE 
TOTAL. IN TENTH.S. 



1000 Aces 


343 


485 


828 


8 


1000 Kings 


189 


384 


573 


6 


1000 Queens 


117 


287 


404 


4 


1000 Jacks 


55 


135 


190 


2 


1000 Tens 


40 


72 


112 


I 


8000 Small 


84 


59 


143 


i 



If this total is multiplied by three, to find 
the value of three plain suits in 1000 deals, 
and the result is added to the 6250 found as 
the total value of tlie trump suit, we shall 
have a grand total of 13,000, accounting for 
every trick in these 1000 deals. 



The Value of a Plain Suit. 25 

There are several Interestinir facts con- 
nected with these results. It will be noticed 
that 172 aces in every 1000 are lost, so that 
five aces are good for four tricks only. Either 
a king or a queen is twice as likely to win a 
trick when it is not led as it is wdien led. 
The most noticeable fact of all, owing to its 
important bearing on the long-suit game, is 
that only eighteen small cards in 1000 win 
tricks, so that it takes about fifty-six cards be- 
low a ten to win a single trick. As a player 
will hold about eight of these cards in every 
hand, he should not expect to take a trick with 
a small card more than once in seven deals. 

With these results as a guide, w^e may 
judge of the probable trick-taking value of 
a*ny given hand, and may classify it as either 
strong or weak. This strength is not the 
number of tricks that will be taken with it 
as the cards happen to be distributed that 
deal, but the average value of the hand if 
the thirty-eight unknown cards in the other 
hands were distributed a thousand times in a 
thousand different ways. In estimating the 
strength or w^eakness of a hand, the experi- 
enced player takes into account the manner 
in which the various high cards in plain suits 
are combined with one another and with the 
trumps. The original lead, and many later 
plays, must be guided largely by this esti- 



26 Common Sense in Whist. 

mated strength or weakness. The opener in 
any hand is absohitely in the dark and must 
select the course which will most probably 
be successful, judging from his own hand, 
and assuming a normal condition of affairs in 
the other hands. If he plays on the assump- 
tion that the distribution of the cards in the 
other hands is unusual, he plays against prob- 
ability, and will be more often wrong than 
right ; but if an unusual condition, such as he 
hopes for, has odds of not more than two to 
one against it, and he may gain four tricks by 
risking one, the odds are really in his favor, 
because if he succeeds only once in three 
times he will still be two tricks ahead. 

As the hand progresses, observation and 
reasoning take the place of probabilities to a 
large extent, and in some instances the end 
play is based entirely on the skillful use of 
ascertained facts. In almost every hand, how- 
ever, there are situations in which the player 
should know the chances for success in certain 
situations, especially in finesse, in cards of re- 
entry. In holding up, and in trusting partner 
for protection in certain suits. 



First Principles* 



If the average value of a plain suit Is not 
more than two and a quarter tricks, and those 
tricks are distributed among the four players 
at the table, it must be obvious that if any 
individual player expects to get three or four 
tricks out of one suit he is expecting some- 
thing which is improbable unless he can estab- 
lish an unusual condition of affairs, such as 
leaving the adversaries with no trumps, and 
finding them with no cards high enough to 
stop his suit. The most important thing is 
to get out the trumps, because it is impossible 
to bring in a long suit while the adversaries 
have any trumps with which to stop it. 

This must show us that in reckoning upon 
the probability of making more than the 
average number of tricks in any plain suit, the 
suit itself is not so important as its combina- 
tion with the trump suit, and the two must be 
taken together as part of the same scheme. 

Even after the adverse trumps are ex- 
hausted, the possibility of making the long suit 
may not depend upon the suit itself so much 



28 Common Sense in Whist. 

as upon the possession of the lead. If the 
player with the established suit is fortunate 
enough to be in the lead himself, the rest is 
easy ; but if another player has the lead the 
long suit is useless unless the side holding it 
has some hioh cards in other suits with which 
to regain the lead. Five high cards in a plain 
suit are worthless after the trumps are gone, 
if another player has five established cards in 
another suit, and the lead. 

This shows us the importance of combining 
the high cards in different suits for the pur- 
pose of re-entry, and it Is very Improbable that 
either side will be able to bring In a long suit 
unless they hold a commanding card in 
another suit or a fifth trump, either of which 
may be considered as re-entry cards. 

Even If the adverse trumps can be ex- 
hausted, and the player holds a card of re- 
entry, It will be Impossible for him to make 
more than the highest cards of his suit unless 
he can establish It by catching all the Inter- 
mediate cards. If there Is any question about 
his ability to do this, the possession of the 
lead is the most important thing, as an example 
will show. Suppose two players each hold a 
suit of five cards, headed by A K J, and that 
each holds the queen of his adversary's suit, 
twice guarded, the trumps being all gone. It 
must be obvious that the one with the lead 



First Principles. 29 

must make five of the eight tricks, because he 
must get his suit estabHshed on the third 
round at the latest, and will then have the 
guarded queen of his adversary's suit to re- 
enter with. 

Unless a suit contains at least five cards it is 
not worth playing as along suit, and the estab- 
lishment of a four-card suit is usually more of 
a matter good luck than of good management. 
If the suit does not contain more than three 
or four cards, some other player at the table 
has at least as many, if not more, and any at- 
tempt to establish the small cards of a medium 
suit usually results in making some intermedi- 
ate cards good in the hands of another player. 
To take a very common example, if you lead 
out the ace and king of a suit in which you 
hold two very small cards, you almost certainly 
establish two intermediate cards of the suit 
against you. 

In long suits, the high cards are chiefly 
useful in catching the intermediate cards and 
so establishing the smaller cards ; but in short 
suits the high cards are chiefly useful for pur- 
poses of stopping the adverse suits and of 
bringing in the small cards of established 
suits. 

When there is no long suit in the hand 
w^orth playing for, the necessity for the care- 
ful combination of the suit, the trumps, and 



30 Common Sense in Whist, 

the cards of re-entry disappears, and each of 
these elements stands upon its own merits. 
The tactics proper to such hands are not those 
of a general in command of a long line of in- 
fantry, covered by artillery and supported by 
cavalry ; but are rather the tactics of the guer- 
rilla, who will fight for tricks only in positions 
in which he knows he has the advantage. The 
whole attention of the player should be given 
to securing the best possible results from the 
various combinations of high cards that he 
may hold in his short suits, and no attempt 
should be made to establish any of the 
smaller cards. 

A careful examination of the recorded play 
of any large number of hands will show that 
about five times as many tricks are lost by 
the bad management of the short suits as are 
gained by the good management of the long 
suits. The reason for this seems to be that 
the lonor-sult hands are the strone hands, and 
to a large extent they play themselves, whereas 
the weak hands are those in which trifling 
errors are often serious. Those who are famdl- 
lar with compass matches must have observed 
that the big swings are usually made on the 
side that holds the weak hands. 

We have already ascertained the average 
trick-takinor value of the individual cards, but 
this value may be largely increased or dim in- 



First Principles. 31 

ished by the position these cards occupy. 
This position may be of two kinds : position 
in the sense of combination with other high 
cards, and position with regard to the lead. 
These are both important, but are affected by 
entirely different conditions. If the player 
holds the ace and king of a suit it does not 
make the slightest difference to him who leads 
the suit so far as taking those two tricks is 
concerned. But if a player holds a guarded 
king the position of the lead may make a 
great difference to him. If he leads the king, 
he gives two adversaries a chance to capture 
it. If it is led through, either by his partner 
or by his right hand opponent, one adversary 
will have a chance at it. But if the lead 
comes from his left, he is sure of saving it, bar 
trumping. 

In all combinations of short suits, headed 
by one or two honors not in sequence, it will 
be found that the trick-takino- value of the 
cards may be largely increased by not leading 
them, and by playing them in such a manner 
as to get the most tricks out of them when 
second or third hand, each suit being con- 
sidered as a unit. 

From the foregoing considerations we ar- 
rive at the first and leading principle of the 
common-sense game, which is, that the suc- 
cessful manacrement of a lono^ suit, in order to 



32 Conivion Sense in Whist. 

get more than the average number of tricks 
out of it, depends entirely upon its combina- 
tion with the trumps, and with cards of re- 
entry in other suits ; whereas the successful 
management of short suits depends upon the 
player's knowledge of the possibilities of the 
suit itself, and his ability to take advantage 
of favorable positions, especially in finesse 
and second hand play. 

This naturally divides our subject Into two 
parts : the one dealing v/Ith long and strong 
suits supported by cards of re-entry and 
trumps ; the other dealing with the short and 
weak suits, which have to depend entirely 
upon themselves. 



Attack and Defence* 



The long-suit game is that of attack, as dis- 
tinguished from the short-suit game, which is 
that of defence. It will usually be found that 
the attack and defence in whist are governed 
by the following principles : 

While the actual position of the cards re- 
mains unknown, you must assume the most 
probable as the one that exists. If you have 
two honors in a suit, for instance, it is very 
improbable that your partner also has two, 
and it is most probable that the three others 
are equally distributed. If certain positions, 
favorable and unfavorable, are equally proba- 
ble, and you are Dlavins: an attacking oame, 
you must always assume that the position fa- 
vorable to you is the one that exists. If you 
are strong enough to risk a finesse on the 
return of your suit, for instance, the probabili- 
ties that the card finessed against lies on your 
right or on your left being equal, you must 
assume the position favorable to you when 
you finesse. If you assume that the position 
is unfavorable, and refuse to take the finesse, 



34 Common Sense in Whist. 

you are on the defensive. From this we infer 
that a player on the defensive should assume 
all positions, equally probable, to be unfavor- 
able, and should take no chances. 

If certain positions make no difference, 
vi^hile others do, you must always play on the 
assumption that the position which makes a 
difference is the one that exists, because if it 
does not exist, you lose nothing. The best 
example of this is in the compulsory finesse. 
You lead from a suit headed by king and ten ; 
your partner wins with the queen and returns 
a small card. He has neither ace nor jack, 
and the ace must be on your left. If the jack 
is there also, your play makes no difference ; 
but if the jack is on your right your ten will 
force the ace and leave you in command of 
the suit. You simply assume that the posi- 
tion which makes a difference is the one that 
exists. 

The long-suit game being one of attack, 
you must start out with the assumption that 
the position is favorable to the success of 
your enterprise, and that you and your partner 
will be able to establish and bring in your 
suit. You must consistenth^ P^^Y upon that 
assumption until you find it is false, and that 
the position is evidently unfavorable. If the 
position of the cards which would be necessary 
to success is improbable, you are foolish to 



Attack and Defence. 35 

assume it, and equally foolish to take the 
offensive and play an attacking long-suit game 
under such conditions. With a suit of six 
cards, headed by a single honor, three small 
trumps and no re-entry, it is quite possible 
that you may bring in your suit, for your 
partner may be very strong in trumps and 
hold stoppers in all the plain suits. But 
Vx'hile it is possible, it is very improbable, and 
if your partner sees that you are continually 
playing for more than there is in the hands 
by assuming improbable situations, he v/ill 
soon lose confidence in you, and play his own 
hand without any regard to yours. 

The very fact that you start to play a long- 
suit game should be an indication to him that 
it will not require any improbable distribution 
of the cards to favor 30ur scheme, and that 
under normal conditions you will succeed. 
On the contrary, if you refuse to make such 
an opening attack, that fact alone will warn 
him that unless he has a hand much above 
the average he will do better to play a de- 
fensive game ; because assuming normal con- 
ditions to exist, you feel compelled to act on 
the defensive from the start. 

As we have already seen, any attempt to 
make more than two tricks out of a plain 
suit will require that suit to be played in con- 
nection with other suits, and with the trumps. 



2,6 Common Sense hi Whist. 

The suit must be established ; the adverse 
trumps must be exhausted, and the suit must 
be brought in with the assistance of cards of 
re-entry, which will also prevent the bringing 
in of the adverse suits. It now remains for 
us to discover the positions which are favor- 
able for success in each of these three direc- 
tions, and those which are not. 



The Two Systems* 

There are two roads to success in the long- 
suit game, but which is the better it is impos- 
sible, in the light of our present experience, 
to say. The more common road, and the one 
that has been traveled ever since whist was a 
game, is to establish the suit first, leaving the 
exhaustion of the trumps to a later period in 
the hand. The other road, which was first 
suggested in the New York Sun, Jan. 17, 
1897, and which w^as traveled wdth remarkable 
success by some of the players at the seventh 
congress, is to exhaust the trumps first, leav- 
ing the establishment of the suit to a later 
period of the hand. 

The objections to the first system are : that 
it shows the adversaries which suit to protect, 
warns them to make their trumps separately, 
and leads them to force out your cards of re- 
entry. The objections to the second system 
are : that it prevents the adversaries from ex- 
hausting the trumps when they are stronger 
in them than you are, and leaves your partner 
in doubt as to the suit for w^hich you are play- 
ing. It also has an unfortunate tendency to 
induce a player to lead trumps from hands 
which are not strong enough to justify it. 



38 Common Sense in Whist. 

On the other hand, it is claimed that these 
disadvantages are frequently compensated for 
by inducing the adversaries to run for it with 
the high cards of your long suit, thereby 
establishing it for you, and by allowing you 
and your partner to make your small trumps 
separately in hands in which the adversaries 
would have drawn the trumps but for your 
leading them originally. 

The first of these systems is called the long- 
suit game, because it always starts by show- 
ing or establishing the long suit. The second 
is the top-of-nothing game, so called because 
if the trumps are not led originally, the suc- 
cess of the long suit not being reasonably 
probable, the usual opening from the hand is 
the top of a weak suit in which the original 
leader has no hope of accomplishing anything, 
unless the card led will warn or support his 
partner. Such an opening does not mean 
that there is no long suit in the hand, and the 
players adopting it have found that it fre- 
quently results in inducing the adversaries to 
exhaust the trumps when they would not have 
done so if the long suit had been shown. 
Under such circumstances a suit is frequently 
brought in which would have been hopeless if 
it had been played for originally. 

We shall first take up the consideration of 
the more common form of attack, the long- 
suit ofame. 



The Leads* 



All long-suit leads are based upon the prin- 
ciple that they are more likely to establish 
the suit In your own hands than In the hands 
of the adversary. If you lead from a suit 
without an honor, the adversaries are much 
more likely to catch your partner's good cards 
than he Is to catch theirs, and it is against 
probability that he will be able to establish 
the suit for you. A very careful analysis of 
a large number of hands played in trophy 
matches has shown that when the long suit is 
opened originally, regardless of Its strength, 
the adversaries win about 55 tricks out of 
every too In that suit, without trumping. 
This includes suits of all degrees of strength, 
and if the figures were separated to show the 
results of leading long v^^eak suits only, the 
proportion of tricks v/on by the adversaries 
would probably be amazing. 

If you have only one honor in a suit, the 
chances are tliat the adversaries hold the bal- 
ance of power, and v/Ill outlast you. If you 
have two honors, 3'our partner's share being 
one of the remaining three, the chances are 



40 Common Sense iji Whist. 

that you have the advantage in that suit, and 
as the number or strength of the honors you 
hold increases, the probabinty becomes greater 
that you will establish that suit easily and 
rapidly. 

Following out this principle, it may be laid 
down as an axiom that it is hardly worth while 
to open a suit in the hope of making more 
than two tricks in it unless the suit contains 
two honors, or unless the rest of the hand is 
so much above the average strength that it 
will make up for the weakness of the longest 
suit. This is a point which we shall discuss 
more fully when we come to speak of cards of 
re-entry. 

Many persons consider the most important 
thino- in connection with the lone-snit ijame 
to be the method of leading from certain com- 
binations of hiorji cards, but as a matter of 
fact such leads make very little difference so 
that the partner is able to distinguish between 
the two great classes into which all such leads 
may be divided : those which are made to es- 
tablish the suit, and those which are made to 
show the command of it. 

The whole system of American leads, to 
which so much importance is attached by 
some people, is based on the assumption that 
It is necessary to distinguish between suits of 
four cards and those of five. If we reject 



The Leads. 41 

suits of four cards as not proper to the long- 
suit game and not worth establishing except 
under very unusual conditions, the necessity 
for any system of number-showing leads en- 
tirely disappears, because every long-suit 
opened must consist of at least five cards. 
All systems of showing number must of ne- 
cessity be conventions, which have no place 
in a work of this kind. 

We have ah'eady found that the average 
vahie of a plain suit is about tw^o tricks, so 
that all long suits which are good on their face 
for more than two tricks, such as those headed 
by A K Q, are too good to lead more than 
once until the trumps are out of their way. 
If such suits are continued, it must be with 
the deliberate intention of allovvMng the ad- 
versaries a chance to ruff them, which is not 
the long-suit game. 

From all such strong suits the proper lead 
is the king, to be followed by a trump or by 
another plain suit, according to certain con- 
ditions of the hand which will presently be 
explained. Under no circumstances should 
such a card be followed by another of the 
same suit unless the player is on the defensive, 
and assumes the position to be unfavorable 
for making more than two tricks in the suit. 

All long suits which are headed by se- 
quences other than the winning sequence may 



42 Common Sense in Whist. 

be most readily established by leading the top 
of the sequence. The chief peculiarity about 
sequences is, that the lower they are the more 
advantage it is to lead them. If you hold 
A K Q J of a suit, the position of the lead 
does not make the slightest difference, because 
you must win every possible trick in the suit 
whether you lead it yourself or some one else 
leads it for you, no matter who. 

If you hold the next lower sequence, K Q 
J lo, the lead may be a slight advantage in 
discovering whether or not your partner has 
the ace, because if you play in with such a 
combination second hand you cannot tell 
whether the leader or your partner holds the 
ace. If you play it third or fourth hand, the 
same doubt arises. 

With the next lower sequence, Q J lo, the 
lead is a decided advantage if 3 our partner 
has the ace and the king is on 3 our left. In 
other positions of the higher cards it makes 
no difference, but we must never forget the 
principle of assuming that the position that 
makes a difference is the one that exists. 
With the next lower sequence, J 10 9, your 
partner's expectation being one honor in the 
suit, you may give him a good finesse by lead- 
ing the jack, and cannot hurt him in anyway. 
If he holds two honors, the lead may be a 
ereat advantage to him if the other honor is 



The Leads. 43 

on your left. If your partner is one of those 
who do not understand finessing supporting 
cards, there is not the slightest use in leading 
them to him. 

All long suits which are headed by four- 
chettes, one or two honors not in sequence, 
should be opened with the small cards. If 
there are three honors, only two of v/hich are 
in sequence, and those two are not the ace 
and kine, the hiohest card" should be led, ex- 
cept in the case of A J 10 and K J 10. From 
both of these the author prefers to lead the 
small cards when strong enough to expect 
more than two tricks in the suit. With three 
honors not in sequence, A O 10, the small 
card should invariably be led. 

When the suit is headed by two honors 
only, which are in sequence, A K, K Q, O J, 
or J 10, it is contrary to the common-sense prin- 
ciples of the long-suit game to lead either of 
the high cards if you are strong enough to 
hope for more than two tricks in the suit, be- 
cause, as we shall see presently, it may force 
you to give up the control of the suit for the 
third round, which is the most critical of all 
in the lonor-suit e^me. 

The jack and ten should never be led from 
any combination of high cards, not even from 
K J 10, because they are necessarily inter- 
mediates, and it is one of the fundamental 



44 Common Sense in Whist. 

principles of the common-sense game to lead 
always the top or the bottom of a suit, never 
an intermediate card. Nothing is so demoral- 
izing to a partner as interior leads, which 
have neither the courage of attack nor the 
virtue of defence, but are simply miserable 
subterfuges, totally unintelligible, except as 
private conventions. 

Suits that do not contain more than one 
honor, even if long, are seldom wortli playing 
for, unless they are accompanied by excep- 
tional re-entry strength in the other suits. 
An exception may sometimes be made in 
favor of suits headed by the ace, but it must 
then be held back as a card of re-entry, some- 
times until the third round. Lono- suits 
headed by single honors are fortunately un- 
common, our table of distributions shov/ing 
that a player will hold them only about once 
in seven deals. As we shall see presently, 
such suits can be put to better uses than lead- 
ing them. 

The Inferences from the leads will be better 
understood when the common-sense theory 
of the long-suit game has been more fully 
explained. As the play of the second hand 
belongs to the defence it will not be dis- 
cussed now, and the play of the third hand 
must be studied in connection with the de- 
velopment of the leader's hand. 



Perfect Hands* 



After a player has learned all the leads, 
returns, second hand plays, and those mechan- 
ical details which first occupy the attention of 
the beginner, he usually feels the want of 
some general guiding principle by which all 
these ideas may be held together and made to 
work in harmony. Without such a guide, he 
will simply w'ander round in space, and the 
play of every hand will be a succession of 
perfunctory movements which have no con- 
nection with one another. A suit is led, re- 
turned, and won by the adversary. Another 
suit is opened, and the second hand plays in 
from some high-card combination and leads 
another suit, and the players go through all 
the motions wath that suit. Each individual 
trick is perfectly played as a unit, but with no 
plan, no theory, no definite aim or object in 
view. 

In order to achieve the best results in any- 
thing, it is necessary to have some standard 
which shall represent perfection, so that those 
who keep this ideal constantly before them 
will recognize the defects in their work, and 



46 Common Sense in Whist. 

will strive to remedy them. What the whist 
player wants is an ideal or perfect hand, which 
may be used as a standard of comparison for 
determining the perfections or shortcomings 
of all classes of hands. With his model con- 
stantly before him he is an artist ; without it, 
he is little better than a caricaturist. 

If a player holds the five highest trumps 
and the four highest cards in two plam 
suits, with the lead, it will hardly be necessary 
to tell him to lead trumps, although he has an 
entirely missing suit. It is quite possible, of 
course, that one of the adversaries may hold 
six trumps and entire command of the missing 
suit, but no whist player in his senses would 
hesitate to lead trumps because of that possi- 
bilit}^ For all practical purposes his hand is 
perfect, and demands an immediate lead of 
trumps. 

On the same principle, with the three high- 
est cards of each plain suit and four trumps of 
any size, no player would hesitate for a mo- 
ment about leading the trumps, nor about 
continuing with them every time he got into 
the lead until all those held by the adversaries 
were exhausted. It is quite possible, of 
course, that the player on his right may hold 
such a combination of high trumps that he 
can kill every good card in the hands of the 
leader's partner, several of which would other- 



Perfect Hands. 47 

wise have taken tricks ; but what whist player 
would hesitate to lead trumps because of that 
possibility ? 

The point in both these cases is, that the 
player recognizes that his hand cannot be im- 
proved by any play or manipulation In the 
plain suits ; and whenever it is useless to con- 
tinue any of the plain suits, either for the 
purpose of establishing them or forcing the 
adversary, the hand may be considered per- 
fect, so far as the plain suits are concerned, 
and all It requires for its protection Is to get 
the adverse trumps out of its way. 

This leads us to the conclusion that Avhen- 
ever a player holds a perfect hand in plain 
suits, he should lead the trumps ; but while 
his hand is defective he should be very care- 
ful about so doing. In order to reduce this 
rule to a practical working basis, we must as- 
certain the lowest value of a hand which may 
be called perfect, or demanding a lead of 
trumps. As this is simply a matter of proba- 
bility, even under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances, we must reverse the process of 
investigation and find the minimum strength 
of a hand from which all players would a^ree 
that It would be right to lead trumps. Hav- 
ing found this, we may safely consider such a 
hand as the standard for the lowest degree of 
perfection. 



48 Common Sense in Whist. 

The result of many years' practical experi- 
ence at the whist table has demonstrated that 
when a player holds an established suit, with 
a card of re-entry in another suit and four 
trumps, he should lead the trumps. There 
are some persons who insist on leading trumps, 
regardless of number, if they have an estab- 
lished suit and re-entry, with the opening 
lead, but as that principle is not generally 
agreed to It must be disregarded for the 
present, and we must accept as our standard 
of perfection a hand containing an established 
suit, a card of re-entry, and four trumps. 
This we shall In future refer to as a perfect 
hand, because It is one from which trumps 
should be led, it being useless to go on with 
the plain suits. On the contrary, all hands 
from which It would not be right to lead 
trumps must be imperfect or defective, and 
they will hereafter be spoken of as such. 



Defective Hands* 



Following out this principle and keeping 
this model before us, we should be able to dis- 
cover immediately the defects in any given 
hand which prevent it from being classed as 
perfect, because these defects must belong to 
one of three classes : 

1. Hands in which the suit is not estab- 
lished. 

2. Hands in which there is no re-entry. 

3. Hands in which there are not four trumps. 
These classifications refer to the opening 

lead, and some persons think that a fourth 
should be added to cover hands in which the 
adversaries have established a suit against 
you. 

If only the first of these defects exists, It 
can be remedied by proceeding to establish 
the suit. From this, two results may follow : 
the command may be forced from the adver- 
saries, or It may be found In the hand of your 
partner. Suppose you lead from a sequence 
of K O J, and your king wins. The ace may 
be assumed to be in your partner's hand, so 
that the suit Is practically established, and if 



50 Common Sense in WJiist. 

that is the only defect in your hand, you should 
immediately lead trumps. 

This gives us the first glimpse of the im- 
portant principle that if the defective parts of 
a player's hand can be remedied by his part- 
ner, the combined hands are perfect and 
trumps should be led. If your partner leads 
a king, and you hold ace, jack, and others of 
the suit, with a card of re-entry in another 
suit and four trumps, you should not only win 
the trick but should lead the trumps inmedi- 
ately. What does it matter whether you or 
your partner holds the established suit, so 
that it can be defended and brought in ? 

If the defect is in the cards of -re-entry it 
cannot be remedied, unless certain cards which 
are not orood enouQ-h to be considered re- 
entry cards in the first place become so during 
the play. For instance, you hold four trumps 
and a fair suit, but your only hope of re-entry 
is a queen. This queen suit is led b)- the 
player on your right ; the king goes up on 
your left, and your partner wins it with the 
ace. If the re-entry was the only defect in 
}'our hand, it is remedied. You will often be 
able to place certain cards in your partner's 
hand which you can rely upon for re-entry, 
such as when one adversary plays the king 
and the other the ace of a plain suit, marking 
your partner with the queen. 



Defective Hands. 51 

If the defect is in the trump suit, it cannot 
possibly be remedied in your own hand, 
because nothing will ever give you four trumps 
if they are not dealt to you in the first place. 
Under such circumstances, there are still two 
chances for you. Four trumps represents 
only more than your average expectation, 
and even if you have but three, they may give 
you sufficient advantage if the four-trump 
hand of an adversary has been forced. Your 
other chance is that your partner may be able 
to remedy the defect in trump strength, and 
you should be keenly on the watch for any 
signs of his holding four or more trumps, 
especially after you get your suit established. 
These signs may come to you in various ways, 
as by his passing doubtful tricks, or taking a 
finesse in plain suits, which almost invariably 
indicates strength. If he uses the trump sig- 
nal, he may show his strength in that manner, 
but it is much better for players to accustom 
themselves to act independently of such arbi- 
trary signals. You should also be on the 
watch for indications of weakness in trumps 
on the part of the adversaries, which would 
justify you in inferring strength in your 
partner's hand. If they show strength in 
trumps, it will be better for you to force the 
strong hand once or twice, which may bring 
hiiu down to your level, no matter how weak 



52 Common Sense in Whist. 

you are, and will justify you in leading trumps 
with less tiian four. 

The chief thing to be borne in mind is, that 
whether the elements which go to make up a 
perfect hand exist in one hand alone, or in 
the combined hands of the partners, the con- 
dition is the same, and whichever first gets 
the lead after the hand is perfect should go 
to trumps. 

From these considerations w^e are able to 
formulate the common-sense principle of play- 
ing the long-suit game, which is this : Upon 
taking up your hand, no matter what position 
at the table you occupy, your first duty w^ill be 
to decide wdiether or not you have a long-suit 
hand ; that is, a hand containing a suit worth 
playing for. If you have, the next thing is to 
determine exactly the defects that exist in 
your hand, and the probability of your being 
able to remedy them, either b)' your own play, 
or with reasonable assistance from your part- 
ner. 

Instead of wandering aimlessly through 
the thirteen tricks that are about to be 
played, your mind will then be set upon a 
definite goal, and your constant aim will be 
to bring your hand to perfection if you can. 
If it cannot be made perfect, it should at least 
be possible to remedy some of its defects, so 
as to be in a position to take advantage of 



Defective Hands. 53 

favorable developments during the play, per- 
haps at the eighth or ninth trick. Instead of 
having only a confused and general idea of 
the possibilities in any given deal, you will be 
watching for the hand to develop until it 
reaches a certain point, and the moment you 
see it has reached that point, you will know 
that the time for action has come, because the 
conditions are favorable to the success of an 
attacking game. 



Developing the Hands* 



In order to carry out this common-sense 
theory of playing the long-suit game, in which 
so much depends on the mutual relationship 
of the two hands, it will be necessary to under- 
stand its principles so thoroughly that the 
defects in your own hand will be perfectly 
clear to your partner, and the strong points 
in his will be equally clear to you. 

In order to show how this may be done, it 
will be necessary to take a few examples, in 
which the student should lay out theactual cards 
so that he may better understand the various 
methods of demonstrating his hand to his 
partner, according to its possibilities. For 
convenience we shall assume hearts to be 
trumps in every instance. Sort out a pack 
into suits, and give yourself the following 
cards : 

^AQj2;*AKQio5;C>Q43;*A. 

This Is an ideal long-suit hand. You have 
an established suit, re-entry in spades, with a 
possible stopper in diamonds, and four good 



Developing the Hands. 55- 

trumps, and should therefore lead trumps Im- 
mediately. Such an opening tells your part- 
ner that your hand is perfect, and needs no 
development in the plain suits. 

q? KQ4 3;*A KJio7 3;0 KQ;«4- 

With a certain re-entry in diamonds, and a 
practically established club suit, you should 
lead the trumps, in which you are strong 
enough to win probably two rounds. If your 
trumps are weak, however, as in the follow- 
ing : 

(3? 10543;* A K J 1073; A; 4^ 43. 

it will be necessary to show your suit first, be- 
cause you are depending on your partner's 
strength in trumps to exhaust them. If you 
begin with the trumps, and find your partner 
able to exhaust them at once, you will have 
to follow suit to every round, and he will have 
no means of judging in which suit you are 
strong. If the adversaries get Into the lead 
and show their suits, that will eulde him of 
course, In which case your play will make no 
difference ; but as already pointed out you 
must always assume that the position in which 
your play may make a difference is the one 
that exists. 

In following out this principle of showlng 
the suit first, It is important to observe this 



56 ' Common Sense in Whist. 

exception. If you have only two probable 
winning cards in the suit, you cannot afford to 
show it, because unless your partner can after- 
ward lead you a card which will give you a 
good finesse, or the second round establishes 
the suit, you will be in the very bad position 
of having to lead the suit a third time to clear 
it, which will probably leave none of the suit 
in your partner's hand to put you in again. 
It is usually better, under such circumstances, 
not to show the suit, because the adversaries 
may discard it, or your partner may be able 
to lead you an honor. From such a hand as 
the followinor it would be unwise to show the 
suit before leading the trumps, even though 
you are weak in them. 

^ 10 5 4 3 ; * A K 5 4 3 2 ; A J ; ^ 4. 

Many players refuse to recognize this as a 
long-suit hand, and will not lead the trumps, 
but will make the ace and king of the suit if 
possible, and then force the command. This 
frequently turns out well by forcing the strong 
trump hand, but It is very disastrous If the 
partner holds even one honor in the long suit 
and is also strong in trumps. As the chances 
are that your partner holds one of the three 
honors outstanding, it is safer to play such a 
hand on long-suit principles, especially as you 
will not make even your ace and king more 



Develophig the Hands. 57 

than once In three times, if you lead them 
rieht out. 

Many players manage these weak trump 
hands on a compromise principle, showing the 
suit and then leading the singleton. There 
should be no deception about such a lead, pro- 
vided the player can be depended on not to 
mistake it for an attempt to show a re-entry 
card and then a long suit. If the singleton 
was high enough to be a supporting card, 
however, the partner might mistake the play 
for an attempt to show the absence of any re- 
entry, which is not true of the example, and 
would give a totally false impression of the 
hand. 

If you have any combination of cards in 
which you are willing to take a finesse on the 
second round of the suit, you are quite safe 
in showing the suit first. Such combinations 
are : A K J 10 and others ; A K J and others ; 
or even A K 109 and others. This supposes, 
of course, that the first round will not estab- 
lish the suit, and that it is doubtful if the 
second will either if the ace and kine are both 
given up. Whenever }'ou have such combina- 
tions in other suits that you are willing to 
have the lead come from your left, you should 
be ready to take a finesse in the second round 
of your own suit; but if you are not strong 
enough to look forward to a finesse as a part 



58 Common Sense m Whist, 

of the strategy of your hand, you should not 
show your suit before leading the trumps. 

The following hands are imperfect, and the 
first step must be to remedy their defects. 

^ K Q 4 3 ; * K Q lo 9 7 2 ; A Q ; ^ 4. 

The suit is not established. If you lead 
the king and it wins, you should immediately 
open the trumps. If your king falls to the ace 
and you can get in again without losing your 
ace of diamonds or being forced, you should 
lead the trumps. 

Some players attach great importance to 
showing the re-entry suit before proceeding to 
establish the long suit, especially w'hen they 
are weak in trumps, but such a course is a 
direct violation of the common-sense principles 
of the game. Take the following hand : 

^ 10543;* K J 9 743; A K; 4^ 4. 

If you show the re-entry by leading the 
king of diamonds, and then open the unestab- 
lished suit, you give up one of your re-entry 
cards before the proper time has come to use 
it, for it may be of the greatest importance 
for you to get into the lead more than once, 
even if you get your suit established in one 
round. By not leading your long suit im- 
mediately, you lose valuable time, and also 



Developing the Ha?ids. 59 

deprive yourself of the option of occasionally 
following a high card of a long suit with a 
singleton. 

When a hand Is defective In two respects, 
It Is not always possible to make It clear to 
your partner which of the two elements Is 
missing. Take the following hands : 

Q?93;*KQ874; OQ54; ^ ^ i ^■ 
^A432; *KQ874; OQs; 43 2- 

In the first, the defect Is In the trumps, 
and In the second It Is In the re-entry cards. 
From both hands the club suit would be led, 
but In the first It would be your duty to watch 
carefully for signs of trump strength In your 
partner's hand, while In the second It would 
be to watch for a re-entry card, especially the 
command of the adverse suit, or a stopper In 
it. 

From some hands you will be compelled to 
lead trumps even without any card of re-entry. 
Under the followlnor circumstances, for In- 
stance : 

(J)AKQ2;*73;0AQJ543;4^2. 

You lead the ace of diamonds and catch 
the king from your adversary. Although you 
have no re-entry card, you must lead three 



6o Common Sense i7i Whist. 

rounds of trumps, and if that leaves one still 
against you, you can force it with the estab- 
lished suit. To continue the suit with such a 
hand would be absurd. Again : 

^KQJ6;^KJ 10642; 07; 4^5 2. 

The club suit is opened. Your partner 
wins with the ace and returns the 5 ; you 
finesse the 10 and hold the trick. This marks 
the only club outstanding in Z's hand, and it 
would be folly to continue the suit, which 
would probably compel B to overtrump Y. 
B would then have to open another suit, in 
which you have absolutely nothing, and your 
weakness would be immediately exposed to 
the adversaries. Under such circumstances, 
the trump is the only good continuation. 

When you have a good suit, but neither re- 
entry nor trump strength, it is usually best to 
show your suit first and then to demonstrate 
the defective nature of your hand to your 
partner. 

^J72;*AKQ98; 10542; #J. 

By leading the club once and then switch- 
ing to the spade jack you inform your partner 
that you have a good suit, too good to lead a 
second time until you are sure all hope of 
makine it is oone. At the same time it warns 

o o 

him that you have no re-entry cards, because 



Developing the Hands. 6i 

your jack is the highest card in your hand, 
outside of your suit. Again : 

^ K J; * KQ J 762; 1092; 4k 65. 

The club suit is opened ; partner wins the 
first trick with the ace and leads trumps. 
Both your king and jack win. It is evidently 
useless to continue your own suit, because 
your partner cannot get in to continue the 
trumps, of which he must hold ace and queen. 
It is also important that you should show him 
that you have no re-entry card, and your best 
continuation is the 10 of diamonds. 

When you have a re-entry card in another 
suit, it may be shown by leading a small card 
of the suit, but it will be necessary to lead a 
card which cannot be mistaken for the top of 
a weak suit. 

(:?AQ;*KQio762;OA53;^4 2. 

You lead clubs. Your partner plays ace 
and leads trumps. You play ace and return 
the queen, which he passes, showing that he 
cannot afford to win the queen if you have no 
more trumps. Although it is probable that 
your partner has the jack of your suit, it is 
not by any means certain, and it would be a 
very dangerous experiment for you to lead a 
small club. As he must have some re-entry 
cards, or five trumps, your safest continuation 



62 Common Sense in Whist. 

is a small card of your re-entry suit. He 
cannot possibly mistake this for weakness or 
a singleton, as you have no more trumps. 

There are a number of situations in which 
you will find it necessary to preserve the best 
cards of your long suit because the}^ are your 
only chance for re-entry. 

Q?A432;*A986542;C>7 2. 

The only reasonable chance for such a suit 
is that your partner can win the first trick and 
will then lead the trumps. If he cannot, you 
may lose your ace ; if he can, you may make 
a great game, and the risk should always be 
run when there is only one radical defect in 
your hand, in this case the re-entry. In the 
actual game, the partner won the first trick 
with the queen and led the Q J and lo of 
trumps through the king turned, failing to 
bring it down. The original leader very 
properly won the third round of trumps, led 
the ace of his long suit, catching the king, 
and then forced the king of trumps. Had he 
passed the third round of trumps, hoping to 
catch the turned king, he would never have 
made anything but his two aces. 



Avoiding Long-Suit Openings* 



When the hand Is hopelessly defective, 
the long suit not being worth playing for, and 
unaccompanied by either re-entry or trumps, 
It Is useless to touch It. From the following 
hands, for Instance, it Is folly to lead the long 
suit first, because It can result only In deceiv- 
ing your partner, and shaking his confidence 
In the soundness of your openings : 

I- ^ Q 10 7 ; * J 9 ; lo 8 7 5 4 3 2 ; ^9. 
2. Q?Q2;*Q9862;09532;4^J3• 
3• ^752; 45i. A K 10 9 3 ; 10 2 ; #654. 

4. ^ J 9 5 ; ^ K O 7 5 4 3 2 ; 8 4 ; # 3- 

5. ^9 7\ * 10 6 ; K 5 4 ; ^ K 10 7 5 4 2. 

Even the third example does not justify 
showing your suit, because you are not v/ill- 
ing to take the finesse which maybe necessary 
to keep control of It for the third round. In 
the fifth, you have a re-entry, and a suit con- 
taining two honors ; but as your partner's 
share of the honors Is one only, even If It is 
the ace, you cannot keep control until the 
third round and still get in, unless your re- 



64 Common Sense in Whist. 

entry lives until the trumps are gone and your 
partner has three of your suit ; both of which 
conditions are against probability. 

Just as there are hands from which it is 
useless to lead the longest suit, probabilities 
being against its success if opened, so there 
are hands from which it is useless to lead the 
trumps until you find out who is going to 
benefit by it. To lead trumps just because 
you have them deceives your partner, because 
a trump lead should indicate a perfect hand, 
and if you make such an opening from a hand 
in which you have absolutely nothing in the 
plain suits to play for, and everything to wait 
for, how is your partner to trust you ? 

^ K 10 7 6 4 2 ; * Q ; 4 3 2 ; ♦875. 
^Q9732; 4b2; O?^; ^96532. 

What is the object in leading trumps from 
either of these hands ? 

If the adversaries establish a suit against 
you, it is usually very bad policy to lead 
trumps, however strong in them, unless you 
have an established suit to offset theirs. 
Take the following hand, for instance : 

^AKQioS; *A5; OJ106; 4b86 2. 

You are the dealer. The club suit is 
opened with the king, forcing your ace. For 
what purpose will you lead the trumps ? To 



Avoiding Long-Suit Openings. 65 

remedy the defects in the adversaries' hands 
by exhausting the trumps for them, leaving 
them with an established suit to force you ? 
For a possible suit in your partner's hand? 
Would it not be better first to see whether or 
not he holds any such suit ? 

When you hold a strong trump suit, v^hich 
is no use to you, your attention should be 
directed to watching for indications that your 
partner has a suit worth defending. If he 
leads cards that warn you that he has noth- 
ing worth playing for, keep quiet with your 
tramps if you have nothing yourself, because 
the adversaries must have the strength, and 
to exhaust the trumps is to Increase the aver- 
age value of the plain suits in their hands. 



The Adversaries^ Hands* 



It is very necessary to watch carefully the 
play of the adversaries, so that you may be 
able to judge of their ability to prevent you 
from perfecting your hand, snd also to take 
warning when they are likely to establish a 
perfect hand against you. When the strength 
is pretty nearly balanced, cne side may get a 
hand almost perfect and the other may im- 
mediately render it defective ; perhaps by 
forcing out the re-entry, perhaps by forcing- 
out a trump. Under such conditions, a player 
must exercise good judgment in his contin- 
uations, and the style of game adopted by his 
opponents will be a matter for careful consid- 
eration. Take the followine hand : 

^KJ32;^KQJ743; 0KQ;^9. 

The club suit is opened, and the first trick 
is won second hand by the ace. This estab- 
lishes your suit, and your hand is practically 
perfect and ready for an immediate lead of 
trumps. But let us see v/hat the adversaries 
have to say about their hands. A small dia- 



TJie Adversaries Hands. 6^ 

mond is led, your partner plays the 3 : third 
hand the jack, and you win with the queen. 
A moment's consideration will show that 
your hand is now defective, because your card 
of re-entry is gone, if the person on your left 
is a good player. 

You have a suit worth playing for, and you 
have established it. He does not run for it 
by playing any high cards; neither does he 
warn his partner by leading supporting cards, 
but he opens with a small diamond. In this 
suit he must hold the ace at least, and he is 
evidently trying to remedy one of the defects 
in a long-suit hand by establishing the suit. 
If you now lead trumps, and either adversary 
can get in before you exhaust them, the dia- 
mond suit will be led again and your king killed, 
probably establishing the suit against you and 
getting a force on you. 

Under such circumstances the best continu- 
ation would be either to go on with your suit, 
trusting it would force the strong hand ; or to 
lead the spade 9, as a warning to 3^our part- 
ner. The first plan is probably the better, as 
it may leave you with the numerical superior- 
ity In trumps, which is always equal to a card 
of re-entry. 

^ A 9 5 4 ; 4i Q 5 ; K Q J 10 3 2 ; <^ K. 

This hand is doubly defective. The suit is 



68 Common Sense in WJiist. 

not established, and there is no legitimate re- 
entry. You lead the diamonds, winning the 
first trick and crediting your partner with the 
ace. He cannot have four trumps and re- 
entry, or he would have taken the trick away 
from you. If you lead trumps, it is a pure 
gamble, for you are almost sure to find four 
against you in one hand, and it is better to 
persist in the suit or to lead the club queen, 
the latter being a warning to your partner 
that you have no re-entry. If this queen 
wins, however, as it did in the actual play, it 
marks your partner with the necessary re- 
entry, and you should imm.ediately go to 
trumps. 

^96431*9; OKQ2;4kKQJ8 5. 

The player on your right leads a small dia- 
mond, and )'our queen wins. You lead a 
spade and hold the trick. Your hand is per- 
fect, because the ace of diamonds cannot be 
on your left, and your king is a sure re-entry 
Card. In the actual play the dealer put up the 
ace of trumps third hand, and returned the 
jack, with the deuce in his hand, won by the 
player on your right with the king, the queen 
falling from his partner. This marked four 
trumps originally in the hand of the player 
who opened the diamonds. He saw his diffi- 
culty, and led the jack of diamonds, not tliQ 



TJie Adversaries Hands. 6g 

ace. This forces out your re-entry, and makes 
a continuation of the trump lead impossible 
because you lead up to the major ten ace. By 
forcing with the established spades you must 
make both trumps and two spades eventually 
unless the adversaries shift to clubs and can 
win every trick in that suit. 

If you have a hand which is defective in one 
respect only, such as re-entry cards, and the 
adversaries lead trumps, do not Interfere with 
them if you have the ace, but let them get 
out two or three rounds before you stop them. 
This will enable you to force with the estab- 
lished suit, and will probably make it all, un- 
less you find five or six trumps in one hand 
against you. 

(^K432;*AJio74 3, O2; 4^7 6. 

You lead the small club ; partner's queen 
being w^on by the king. This player opens 
the diamond suit by leading the king, and fol- 
lows vv^ith a small trump. This shows that he 
is depending on his partner's strength in 
trumps. The ace is pla}'ed third hand and 
the jack returned, your partner dropping the 
7 and 9. It is folly to win this trick, leaving 
two established trumps on your right and one 
small on your left. Let him lead again, and 
by winning the third round and getting the 
first force on the four-trump hand, you must 
make four tricks In clubs and one in trumps. 



JO CGimnon Sense in WJiist. 

It will sometimes happen that you will open 
a suit in which your partner can do nothing 
to help you, so that you cannot establish it, 
altliough you may have the trumps to defend 
it. Under such circumstances you should be 
on the watch for indications of a better suit in 
your partner's hand. 

(:? AK54; ^ OJ; K 10743; # 76, 

You open the diamonds, and the fourth 
hand wins the trick with the 9. He leads the 
spade king, which your partner wins with the 
ace. He leads the club king, following it 
with a small one, allowing your queen to 
make. The position now is, that both sides 
have a suit and re-entry. You have the clubs, 
with the kine of diamonds to eet in with ; 
they have the spades with the ace of diamonds 
to get in with. Being in the lead, you should 
immediately get out three rounds of trumps 
as the only chance for a great game. 



Inferences for the Third Hand* 



Let us now suppose that you are third 
player on the first trick, and see what infer- 
ences can be drawn from the manner in which 
your partner opens his hand, hearts being al- 
ways trumps, as before. The student should 
lay out the cards, so that the exercises may 
resemble the actual play as much as possible. 

(i?AQJ;*Aio; OQ6542; ^AK2. 

Your partner leads a small club, and the 6 
and 4 fall on your ace. You return the 10, 
and he catches the queen from the player on 
your left and immediately leads a small trump. 
The inferences from this play are, that the 
hand was defective only in the unestablished 
suit, and that this defect must now be rem- 
edied ; in other words he holds the jack, and 
can catch all the outstandinor clubs. The mo- 
ment he got the suit established he led trumps, 
showing that he held a re-entry, which must 
be either ace or king of diamonds. You 
finesse the trump jack, and lead ace and 
queen. Both these cards win, leaving you 



72 Common Sense in Whist. 

with the lead. Your only possible continua- 
tion is the queen of diamonds. This will give 
your partner a finesse if he holds the ace, and 
will make his re-entry certain if he holds the 
king. 

^AK653;4bAj32;065;4fe3 2. 

Your partner leads club king, showing a de- 
fective hand, because the suit is not es- 
tablished. Whether or not he has any re- 
entry is quite unimportant, because you have 
a fifth trump. You should win his king and 
make sure of three rounds of trumps imme- 
diately, so as to exhaust them as far as possi- 
ble before you can be forced. 

If you have one less trump, but a re-entry 
in either of the other suits, you should equally 
win the king and lead the trumps. Never 
waste any time when you have a perfect hand. 

^K53;*Aj953;0JiO2;4^6 4. 

Partner leads club king. You have neither 
trump strength nor re-entry, so you let it 
alone. He follows with the 8, marking him 
with the Q and lo. If you take this trick, 
what do you propose to do with the lead ? 
You have nothing to accomplish, therefore 
you should let it alone. By passing the sec- 
ond time, if the 8 holds the trick without 
being ruffed, you practically tell your partner 



Inferences for the Third Hand. 73 

that one defect in his hand is remedied, for 
you have the entire suit between you. If he 
is strong enough to go to trumps he may do 
so ; but he is fairly warned that you cannot 
help him, because you decline to take the lead 
and do so. 

Q?AK42;*AQ6;OK73;<^J6 4. 

Your partner leads a small club ; the deuce 
is played second hand ; you finesse the queen 
and return the ace, the 10 falling on your 
right. That player cannot have held J 10 2, 
or K J 10 2, or he would have gone up on the 
first trick. Your partner must have the king, 
and his suit must be established if he held ^v^ 
of it originally. That defect being remedied, 
you should lead the trumps, as you have four 
of them and re-entry, getting out three rounds 
before allowing the adversaries a chance to 
get a suit established against you. 

<^K62;*A86; OA84;^ 10762. 

Your partner leads king of diamonds, which 
you allow to win. He shifts to the club queen, 
which you finesse, and it wins. Your partner 
should have four trumps, but no re-entry 
card. If his hand had been defective in three 
ways, suit unestablished, no re-entry, and 
weak trumps, he would probably not have 
opened it in that way, unless he was gambling 
everything on the diamond suit. If he does 



74 Common Sense in Whist. 

not lead trumps, you may be sure that his 
hand is hopelessly defective. 

^AK02;*AiO9874;<C>63;^4. 

The player on your left leads the jack of 
clubs, which your partner covers with the 
queen, third hand playing the 6. It should 
be evident that your partner holds the king 
and at least one other, and you should lose 
no time about taking the trick away from him 
and getting out three rounds of trumps. 
Nothing but five trumps in one hand against 
you will prevent you from making four miore 
tricks in clubs and all your trumps, because if 
you cannot catch the fourth trump, you can 
force with the clubs and re-enter with the 
small trump. 

It is very important that you should correct 
your partner in his inferences if you see that 
he is laboring under a false impression as to 
the situation. This is comparatively simple in 
such cases as those in which you have opened 
a' weak suit and he has led trumps under the 
evident impression that your suit is strong. 
By winning the first round of trumps and 
leading a lower card of the weak suit you may 
disabuse his mind of the impression that your 
suit is worth playing for. Between good 
players such a misunderstanding is unlikely, 
but one has to play with all sorts of partners. 



Inferences for the Third Hand. 75 

Sometimes the case is more complicated, as 
in the followino- situation : 

(3?A52;^A5;0754;#AQ87 3. 

Partner leads club queen, which wins, and 
he Immediately follovx^s with a small trum.p. 
He evidently held Q J 10 and other clubs, 
and knowing you must hold the ace, or both 
ace and king, concludes that liis suit is estab- 
lished, because if you have not the king 3^ou 
can catch it. Now, you know that the king 
cannot be caught, because it must have been 
more than once guarded, or it would have 
been played on the queen. The next time 
the suit is led your ace will be forced and the 
king will be free, so you see your partner is 
playing under a misapprehension, which you 
must correct. By leading the ace of clubs be- 
fore returning the trump, you should be able 
to make it clear to your partner that the ace 
was not worth keeping. If he has any com- 
mon sense, he will not continue the trumps a 
third time if he wins the return, but will force 
you with a small club, probably killing the king 
at the same time. After taking the force, you 
can lead your weak suit, that being probably 
your partner's re-entry. 

^ K 10 7 4 ; * 10 9 5 3 ; Q J 4 ; ♦ 102. 
Partner leads ace queen of clubs. The player 



76 Conunon Sense in WJiist. 

on your right wins second round with the 
king, and leads a small diamond, your jack 
holding the trick. This shows that you have 
a perfect hand. Your partner has all the clubs 
and must have either ace or kinor of diamonds. 
Even if he holds king alone and it falls to the 
ace, your queen will be a re-entry, and as you 
have four trumps you should lead them at 
once. 

^ A K 105; li. J 9 2; A8; ^ K542. 

Partner leads club kinof and shifts to the 
spade queen. This shows a great club suit, 
no re-entry, and probable weakness in trumps. 
The ace on your right wins the spade, mak- 
ing your king good for re-entry. He leads a 
small diamond. Upon this you should play 
the ace second hand, and lead trumps imme- 
diately, making sure of three rounds. In the 
actual play three rounds cleared the trumps, 
partner holding 432, and all the clubs made. 

^ A Q 10 ; * A 5 4 ; K- J 10 8 5 2 ; 4^ 10. 

Partner leads club king and follows with a 
small trump. Your queen and ace catch the 
jack from fourth hand, and your ten wins the 
next trick, leaving the 9, which was turned up, 
on your left, your partner with the kino-. If 
you play your partner's suit, leading club ace 
and then small, the dealer will almost cer- 



Inferences for the Third Hand. 77 

talnly save his trump ; but if you lead the 
small club your partner will win the trick un- 
less Z had only one orginally, and when your 
partner leads the trump king to catch the 9 
you can get rid of the ace of his suit. 

^Qi0 32;^J io64;<C>J;# 7632. 

Partner leads spade king, and follows with 
the deuce of diamonds. 1 he queen is played 
second hand, and your jack fails. The infer- 
ence from this play is that your partner is very 
strong in spades, too strong to go on ; has a 
re-entry in diamonds, but is very weak in 
trumps. 

^072;* 08 7654; OQJ;4^Q5- 

Partner leads small spade and your queen 
wins, the 4 and 7 falling. You return the 5 ; 
the 8 is played second hand and your partner's 
9 forces the ace. Partner has certainly fin- 
essed, and must hold the king. This fin- 
esse should indicate to you that his suit is 
v/ell worth playing for, and he is either strong 
in trumps or in a good position to have the 
lead com.e from his left. Player on your riglit 
leads a sm.all diamond, and your jack holds 
the trick. You should lead the trumps at 
once, although holding three only, because 
3^ou and your partner between 3^ou have every 
suit stopped and one established. 



yS Comino}i Sense in WJiist. 

^AKQio;^Q4;OAQ98;^43 2. 

Partner leads lo of diamonds, second hand 
plays small and you pass it. The lo holds the 
trick, and is followed by the deuce : your queen 
catching the jack from second hand. You are 
fairly warned to keep still with your trumps, 
and lead the club queen. The 9 falls second 
hand and your queen holds. You should im- 
mediately lead three rounds of trumps, be- 
cause your partner must hold both ace and 
king of clubs, or the player holding the 9 
would have covered the queen second hand. 



In the management of lone-suit hands there 
are several very important points which 
should be carefully studied by the common- 
sense player. These are : Retaining com- 
mand of your long suit ; preserving cards of 
re-entry ; and handling the trumps in such a 
manner as to leave you in the lead after the 
third round. 

Many players w^ho open and develop their 
hands with good judgment lose control of them 
at the most critical point, and what should 
have been a good game goes all to pieces. 
When this happens, it can usually be traced 
to one or other of the errors just pointed out, 
and we shall examine a few of the positions 
in which they commonly occur. 



The Control of Suits^ 



One of the most common errors is in losing- 
control of the suit for which you are playing. 
This may be due to either of two causes : the 
inherent weakness of the suit itself, or its bad 



manaoement. 



It has already been pointed out in connec- 
tion with the subject of leads that a suit 
which does not contain at least five cards and 
tv/o honors Is not worth playing for, unless it 
is accompanied by exceptional re-entry 
strength. If you have two honors in a suit, 
your partner's expectation is one of the re- 
maining three, and if that one will probably 
either win the first trick or force the command 
of the suit, you should be able to win the 
second or third round to a certainty, bar trump- 
ing, or should be strong enough to take such 
a finesse on the second round as must leave 
you in control on the third. If you are not 
equal to this, you are not strong enough to 
play the long-suit game, and vvould do better 
to play on the defensive. 

Taking this principle as a guide it should 



8o Comvdon Sense in Whist. 

be evident that it is not worth while to lead a 
king from king, queen and small cards, be- 
cause if you lose the king you have no card 
with which to finesse the second round and 
keep the command. If you have K Q lo, how- 
ever, and are strong enough to look forward 
to a possible finesse of the lo on the second 
round, you may lead the king first ; otherwise 
it is safer to begin with the small cards if you 
hope to make more than two tricks out of the 
suit. 

If you open a suit headed by K J, or even 
K lo, you must always look forvvard to the 
possibility of having to finesse the second 
round so as to keep the control of the suit 
until the third. It must always be remem- 
bered that unless you and your partner hold 
A K Q of the suit between you, it is impos- 
sible to eet more than two tricks out of it 
without a finesse of some kind, unless you can 
establish the suit in two rounds, which will 
occur only about once in four times. The 
longer you are in a suit, the better the chance 
to catch ail the cards out against you, so that 
very long suits may be played with less honors 
than shorter ones. Seven cards headed by 
A K are better than five cards headed by A 

Even after a suit has been fairly started, 
the control of it is often lost by attempting to 



The Control of Suits. 8i 

kill two birds with one stone. When you 
have a chance to catch a high card on your 
left, think a moment to be sure that even if 
you catch it, you will not be making another 
high card good on your right, which will block 
your suit. If you still have a chance to make 
the suit, and cannot catch both the cards 
wdiich you know to be out against you on the 
second round, do not attempt to get either of 
them, but let the one make and hold the com- 
mand over the other. Take the following ex- 
ample : 
^Qj3;*KiO974;0KiO9;4K7. 

You lead a club ; partner wins with the ace, 
the 3 and 5 falling. He returns the 6, 
and the 8 falls on your right, the deuce being 
marked in your partner's hand. If you play 
the king, you abandon all control of the suit, 
because you cannot possibly catch both jack 
and queen. According to the principle al- 
ready laid down, that you should not open a 
suit in which you are not willing to take a 
finesse on the second round, you must play 
the 9. In the actual game, Y won with the 
queen and led A J of diamonds. On the 
second round your partner discarded a spade, 
showing four trumps, and giving you all the 
elements of a perfect hand, from which it was 
quite safe to lead trumps, even with the whole 
diamond suit against you, 



82 CoiPimon Sense in Whist, 

^KQJ6;*KJ 10642; 07; 452. 
While this hand has two defects, one of 
them can be remedied. You open the club 
suit. Partner wins with ace, the 7 and 3 fall- 
ing. He returns the 5, and second hand 
plays the 8. Your partner cannot have an- 
other club, because he has not the queen, and 
the Q 9 are the only ones not accounted for. 
As he can never lead clubs to you again, and 
you have no re-entry card, your only chance 
is to retain command of the suit yourself by 
finessing the 10. In the actual game this 
held the trick, the 9 falling. This compelled 
the player to go to trumps even without a re- 
entry, losing the first round, taking a force in 
diamonds and succeeding in bringing down 
all the trumps with two more leads, making 
the clubs. 

^AK75;*Aio873;OK3;^KJ. 

You lead a small club. The jack is played 
second hand ; partner wins with the king and 
returns the 2, the 4 and 5 falling on your 
right. Now, unless your partner held four 
clubs originally, it is impossible for you to 
catch both queen and 9. You must finesse 
the 8; not the 10. If the Q 9 are both on your 
left, one of them must win, and it does not 
matter which. If the Q 6 are there, the Q 
must win. That the Q 9 6 are all there is too 



The Control of Suits. 83 

Improbable for consideration. The only po- 
sition that will make a difference In your play 
Is that the Q Is alone and the 9 and 6 are 
both on your right, and according to the prin- 
ciple already laid down, we must always as- 
sume that the position that makes the differ- 
ence Is the one that exists, so we must finesse 
the 8, because both ace and 10 maybe needed 
to catch the 9 and 6. If the trick is won on 
your left, you have a great advantage in posi- 
tion on the unplayed suits, because you must be 
left with re-entry and four trumps — a perfect 
hand. This position occurred in one of the 
matches for the Utica trophy, and the failure 
to finesse properly cost four tricks In clubs. 

^Aj2;«^J65432;052;4^4 3. 

This is a very bad hand to open, because 
the best suit Is loner and weak, and the hand 
is otherwise defective ; but the short suits are 
even worse leads. In the actual game the 
club was led ; the queen was played second 
hand, killed by the ace, the 8 falling fourth 
hand. Partner led trumps, and the finesse of 
the ace and return of the jack caught the 
queen on the third round, the dealer renounc- 
ing, showing that your partner had five trumps 
originally. Partner now leads the club 9, 
which Is covered with the 10. A moment's 
reflection must show you that If you attempt 



84 Coimnon Sense in Whist, 

to win this trick with the jack, your hand is 
absolutely dead, and that your only chance is 
that the king will fall and that your partner 
has the 7 to lead to you wdien he gets in 
again. In the actual game, the thoughtless 
play of the jack lost four tricks. 



Cards of Re-entry^ 



The general principle governing cards of 
re-entry is, that they should supply the defi- 
ciencies of the long suit, and take the place of 
high trumps. If you have a suit already 
established and four average trumps, one 
card of re-entry will probably be enough to 
perfect your hand if you can win the third 
round of trumps and get the first force on the 
four-trump hand with your established suit. 
One card of re-entry is enough to justify you 
in playing for a long suit containing two 
honors, always counting on your partner to 
have average strength, of course. If you can 
get your suit established and the trumps going 
before you lose your re-entry, it should take 
five trumps in one hand to stop you. 

But if you have a suit which will probably 
require at least two leads to get it established, 
its weakness may be made up for by strength 
in re-entry cards. A suit headed by Q lo 
only, should have two re-entry cards in order 
to give it any chance of success. The more 
re-entry cards a player holds, the more prob- 



86 Common Sense in Whist. 

able it Is that he can establish and brino- in 
a long weak suit, and the weaker the re-entry 
cards, the stronger must be the suit in order 
to make anything out of it. 

Re-entry cards will also take the place of 
high trumps, because they enable a player to 
get into the lead and go on with the trumps, 
even if he cannot win a trick in them. When 
a player holds re-entry cards in two suits, he 
can afford to lead his trumps even when they 
are both short and weak, but he must be care- 
ful if his re-entry cards are taken away from 
him before he can exhaust the trumps. 

If the re-entry card is lost before the suit 
can be defended and brought in, any other 
card which has the slightest chance of becom- 
ing a re-entry must be carefully preserved. 
Take the following example : 

(:? Q J ; * K J lo 7 6 ; K 5 2 ; 4^ J lo 9. 

This is the dealer's hand, and it is doubly 
defective. The player on the left leads dia- 
monds twice, and your king must be given up 
to win the second round. The clubs are 
opened, and your partner's queen falls to the 
ace. Your suit is now established, but your 
hand is still defective in trumps, and your re- 
entry is gone. The trumps you cannot help, 
but you should keep the spades while there 
is a chance. In the actual game, the player 



Cards of Re-entry. 87 

on your right led trumps, and had to per- 
severe for four rounds to win the last one 
held by your partner. On the two last rounds 
a diamond and a spade were discarded, instead 
of letting go a club to keep the possible re- 
entry, and three tricks were lost, the player 
on the right having no more diamonds, and 
being forced to open the spade K with K Q, 
your partner holding the ace. 

It is often very necessary for the partner of 
the long-suit player to sacrifice his own hand 
to save his partner's re-entry cards. Leading 
the only honor at the head of a long suit, as 
in the Deschapelles coup, is one form in which 
the opportunity presents itself, and the prin- 
ciple underlying it is too well known to need 
explanation here. Another form, and one 
little understood, is putting up high cards 
second hand, to save partner's inferred or 
supposed re-entry cards. 

^K7;*K432;OK42;4^765 3. 

Partner leads a small diamond. You win 
with the king and return the 4. He finesses 
the 10, holds the trick, and leads a small 
trump, your king being killed by the ace. 
The player on 3'^our left leads A J of spades, 
his partner winning the second round with the 
king. It Is obvious that he can have no more 
spades if the player on your left had five, and 



88 . Common Sense in Whist, 

that your partner's remaining cards are three 
trumps and a re-entry in clubs, with his suit. 
The player on your right leads a club, on 
which you should play the king, so as to save 
your partner's re-entry until at least one more 
round of trumps is brought out. In the 
actual game the king was not played, and 
your partner was obliged to play the ace to 
win the lo, and then lead away from the J 9 
8 of trumps, finding the 10 3 on his right, the 
Q 6 5 on his left. The failure to put up the 
king of clubs second hand cost four tricks. 



Management of Trumps^ 



The management of the trump suit Is a 
large subject, but as the general principles 
are usually explained in the ordinary text 
books, it is not our purpose to devote any 
space to them here. Those who are not well 
up in the common uses of trumps are referred 
to "Whist Tactics," page 91, et seq., in which 
they will find 33 different points in the man- 
agement of the trump suit fully explained. 

We have already found that the stronger a 
player is in re-entry cards, the weaker he may 
be in his long suit, and have also observed 
that the same relationship exists between the 
re-entry cards and the trumps. Trumps may 
be led much more freely when the re-entry 
cards are in different suits, and many good 
players will lead trumps from one or two 
only if they have entire command of two 
suits. With one good suit and re-entry in 
both the others, very few players will stop to 
establish the suit, but will lead trumps at once. 
Superior re-entry strength is imperative when 
leading from four small trumps. 



90 Common Sense in Whist. 

The most important rule to be remembered 
in regard to the management of trumps in 
connection with a long suit is this : If only 
two trumps remain, of which you have the 
best, get into the lead at the first opportunity 
and draw the losing trump ; but if your trump 
is not the best, get into the lead as soon as 
possible and force out the better trump with 
your established suit, before the player hold- 
ing the better trump gets a chance to draw 
yours. 

(^ K J 4 3 ; * 6 3 ; K J 7 5 2 ; 4b K 4. 

You lead the diamonds, partner winning 
the first round with the ace, and your finesse 
of the jack holding the second. You then 
lead trumps, and the same thing occurs in 
that suit. Your king fails to bring down the 
queen, however, so you proceed to force it 
out w^ith your established suit, eventually 
getting in v/ith your long trump and making 
the remainder of your diamonds. This is 
comparatively simple ; but take this case : 

(J}AK92; ^A732; OA954; i^ z- 

Your partner leads king and small clubs. 
You win second round with the ace and lead 
three rounds of trumps. The third round 
brings down the 10 on your left and the queen 
on your right, the jack being still in the 



Management of Trumps. 91 

dealer's hand. The player on your right leads 
a small diamond, on which you should imme- 
diately put up the ace second hand, in order to 
force the best trump with the established 
club suit. This will leave you the long trump 
for reentry, and still another club to give 
your partner. In the actual gam_e the player 
passed. The dealer won with the queen of 
diamonds, drew the losing trump, and made 
five tricks in spades, entirely shutting out the 
club suit. 

One of the most important things In the 
management of trumps in connection with 
long suits is never to finesse on your partner's 
lead, except with ace queen. Play the best 
you have, and leave the finessing to him, 
being careful to lead him any cards that will 
give him a good finesse if you have them, re- 
gardless of number. With K J and others, 
never finesse the jack, on his lead, but play the 
king and return the jack, giving him a chance 
to take the finesse if he wants to. The same 
is true of A J and others ; always return the 
jack, as the opportunity to finesse is more 
valuable than the possible information of 
number. Finessingr and switchino- suits to 
catch turned-up honors is a losing game when 
your partner wants trumps out. 

A very common error is in winning the 
adversary's lead of trumps when you are quite 



92 Common Sense in V/hist. 

willing that the trumps should come out. 
Never interfere with things when they are 
going your way. Take this hand, the heart 
king turned : ■ 

(^ A 103 2; * K 10865 3; A J 3. 

You lead clubs, finessing on the return, 
which forces the ace and leaves the unguarded 
queen on your right. The player on your 
left leads the king of diamonds. If you win 
this trick, what are you to do next? Your 
second-best diamond will be worthless for re- 
entry, for if you lead trumps the king wull 
certainly win and the diamond will be led 
through you. If the player on your left has 
K Q 10 he will finesse and kill your jack. 
The fact that your partner returned your suit 
immediately, shows that he cannot help you, 
and you must play your own hand to the best 
advantage, so your best chance is to preserve 
your re-entry cards, and let the king of dia- 
monds win. In the actual game this was 
done, and the trumps were led next. The 
player with your hand passed the first two 
rounds, king and jack, winning the third and 
forcing. The queen of trumps was the only 
trick remaining for the adversaries, although 
they held all the spades and the Q 10 9 of 
diamonds. 

One of the most serious errors Into which a 



Manageniefit of Trumps. 93 

player can fall is In risking everything on the 
chance of dropping two trumps together, 
either by leading a losing trump from two, or 
by leading the best trump when it is the only 
one in his hand, two being out against him. 
A little consideration will show that if you 
have an established suit and only one trump 
left, two being out against you, you risk 
everything by leading the trump, but if you 
have no other chance to make your suit, you 
must take it, as if the trumps are not divided, 
you cannot make anything but your trump. 

The most common error is when a player 
holds two trumps, and two are out against 
him. If he has a suit established, and only 
one of his trumps is the best, his play is very 
simple. Lead the master trump, and if it 
does not catch both the others, force with the 
established suit. If the best trump is against 
him, and he holds the second and third best, 
everything will depend on whether or not the 
man with the best trump has a forcing suit, 
for if he has, he will win one trump if you 
lead it, and force the other. Your only hope 
of gain is to prevent both trumps from mak- 
ing, either by finding them divided, or by 
forcing the best trump to be played on one of 
yours, and then getting in again to catch the 
other. In this, all depends on the probability 
that you can get in. As a general rule, it is 



94 Common Sense in Whist. 

always safer to let the two trumps make sep- 
arately when you have not the best, because 
yours must make also, and your suit as well. 
It will often happen that you will force the 
best, and can catch the other after you have 
ruffed in. 

A common error with good players is in 
goiiig- on with the trumps just because their 
partner has led them, and without stopping 
to consider the consequences to their own 
hand. Very often a small trump is the only 
possible card of re-entry, and it would be 
folly to lead it. 

^ Q 7 5 3 ; ♦ 7 ; 5 2 ; 4^ K lo 9 8 7 2. 

You lead the spade, the jack going up sec- 
ond hand, your partner winning with the ace 
and leading a small trump. The ace is played 
second hand, and a spade is led through you. 
You play the 7, and your partner takes it 
away from you with the queen, shov/ing he 
has no more of the suit. He leads another 
small trump, and your queen falls to the king 
on your left. Winning clubs are then led, 
the second of w^hich you ruff. If you now 
lead your only remaining trump, your hand 
is dead, whether your partner has the best 
trump or not. No matter how good your 
partner's diamonds may be, they are no better 
than your established spades, and by forcing 



Management of Trumps. ' 95 

with that suit you are certain of making three 
tricks in spades, no matter who has the best 
trunip. In the actual game, which was 
played in one of the matches for the Utica 
trophy, the player lost three tricks by leading 
the trump. The jack was on his left, and the 
established clubs forced the last trump, and 
the ace of diamonds was the only trick remain- 
ing, the spade suit being shut out. 

It is not always advisable to go on with the 
trumps when you have high ones and your 
partner has small ones, especially if you know 
he can ruff a suit. If your partner has two 
trumps remaining, and can probably ruff a 
suit, let him make one of his small trumps and 
lead you the other. The only danger in this 
is, that if your partner is not a common-sense 
player he will think you have abandoned the 
trump lead and will try to force you, instead 
of coming back with the other trump. 

The same difficulty arises when you are 
leading trumps and the player on your left re- 
nounces. If you try to get your partner into 
the lead in a plain suit, so as to come through 
the other hand, he may conclude that you 
have abandoned the trump lead, and instead 
of coming through with a supporting trump," 
he will go on with the plain suit, and let the 
losing trumps on your right make. Some 
judgment of the capacity of the partner is 



96 Common Sense in Whist. 

needed in such situations, but you may usually 
trust a good player to see anything that is 
not very improbable. 

Situations will sometimes come up which 
you must not expect a partner to see, simply 
because they are so improbable that he would 
not believe the evidence of his own reasoning- 
powers. Suppose you hold A K J 10 4 3 2 
of trumps, and he has the queen turned. He 
wins the first trick in plain suits and leads a 
small trump. You play the 10 and hold tlie 
trick, both adversaries following suit. If he 
holds four trumps it is evidently useless to 
lead another round, because you hold them 
all between you ; but you must not expect 
your partner to see through such an improba- 
ble condition of affairs, and even at the ex- 
pense of knocking your trumps together, you 
should go back with a small one, and make 
the situation perfectly clear to him. 

When your partner is leading trumps, or 
you are anxious that he should get in to con- 
tinue them, you having none, you should sus- 
pend all the rules of the game to get him into 
the lead. Under such circumstances it would 
be perfectly proper for you to lead a small 
card from A K Q even, or to pass a small 
card led, holding K Q, or A K second hand. 
To put up a high card second hand, when you 
want him to get into the lead, is finessing 



Management of Trumps. 97 

against your partner, and fighting against 
yourself. 

One of the most important things in the 
common-sense game is never to take the lead 
when you don't want it, and never to keep it 
when you want your partner to get it. Sup- 
pose you have ruffed a suit, and want to ruff 
it again, you should not lead winning cards, 
even from A K suits, but give your partner 
a chance to get in by leading him a small card. 
On the same principle, it is very bad policy 
to lead supporting cards when you want your 
partner to get into the lead, because they 
invite him to finesse and pass the trick, which 
is just what you don't want him to do. 

^ 7 3 2 ; * A K Q 6 5 4 2 ; J 10 2. 

The player on your right leads the ace of 
spades, and you trump it. There are two 
continuations open to you : To lead the high 
clubs, hoping to find your partner short, and 
so establish a cross ruff, or to lead the dia- 
monds in the hope that he can win the trick 
and force you again. The odds being against 
his being short in clubs and yet not over- 
trum.ped, the diamond is the better play ; but 
you must lead the small one, not the jack, 
because the latter would tempt him to finesse. 

A very important principle in the manage- 
ment of trumps, when you have led from four 



98 Common Sense in Whist. 

of them to protect an established suit, is, 
never to win the second round unless you can 
win the third also. If you win the second 
round and are left with two losing trumps, 
you cannot afford to risk another round, be- 
cause even if you think you can get in again 
without being forced, you may be mistaken, 
and the adversary may pull both your trumps. 
If you give up one of your losing trumps on 
the second round, the adversary dare not lead 
trumps again, because your best trump would 
win and your suit would force, leaving you 
with a trump. Take the following example : 

A432; KJ8432; A5; 7. 

You lead clubs ; partner wins with ace and 
returns small, your finesse of the jack holding 
the trick. You go to trumps ; partner winning 
with queen and returning the 9, covered by 
the 10. It is folly to play your ace, because 
you cannot risk leading another round with 
the whole spade suit against you. If 3'ou 
pass the trick, and can get in again, you can 
lead the winning trump and then force, and 
nothing but five trumps In one hand against 
you will stop you from making your suit. 



Self-Protection^ 



A very common fault among long-suit play- 
ers is in failing to protect themselves. There 
are so many situations in which they imagine 
certain things must happen, but forget to pro- 
tect themselves in case they do not happen. 
You lead a suit of K lo 7 6 3, for instance, 
and the jack wins second hand. You lead it 
again, and the queen wins second hand, the 
4 and 5 having fallen from your partner, the 
2 and 8 from fourth hand. Upon getting in 
the third time you lead the 7, imagining the 
player on your left will put up the ace and that 
the 9 will fall. But suppose he does not put 
up the ace, but plays the 9 instead ? It would 
have cost you nothing to protect yourself by 
leading the 10. Nothing is more important 
than this elementary principle of playing one 
of the second and third-best of a suit. No 
matter wdiat position at the table you occupy, 
or how sure you feel that such a play is un- 
necessary, you may be mistaken, and must 
protect yourself. 

Here is another case, taken from a match 
in the inter-city tournament, in wdiich this fail- 



100 Common Sense in Whist. 

ure to protect yourself cost five tricks. A 
small club was led from K J 6 5 3 2. Second 
hand played the 4 and third hand trumped 
it, immediately leading a trump, of vv^hich he 
had six. The player on your right puts up 
the ace of trumps and leads the 8 of clubs 
through you, having already placed the 7 to 
the first trick. The most natural impression 
would be, of course, that it was quite unnec- 
essary to waste the K or J in covering this 
card, as the player on your left must play a 
higher card, and your partner can ruff it. In 
the actual game, the pla^^er passed, third hand 
renounced, and the six-trum.p hand was forced 
again, leaving him with three trumps only 
against three on his right, w^hich enabled the 
adversaries to bring in all the diamonds. Had 
the 7 of clubs been covered, the third hand 
w^ould have been forced, leaving the superior- 
ity in trumps against him, and shutting out 
the whole diamond suit. 

A player will sometimes hold second and 
third-best of a suit which he feels sure his 
partner can rufT, and he leads a small card to 
give him the chance. To his surprise he can- 
not ruff it, and the fourth-best of the suit 
holds the trick. It would have cost nothing 
to protect himself by leading one of the 
second and third-best, so that in case his 
partner had no trumps left the command of 
the suit would at least have been forced out, 



Discards* 



Discarding is usually considered a very im- 
portant part of the defence to the long-suit 
game, and its difficulties have led to the in- 
vention of endless systems of arbitrary rules, 
which are intended to govern the discard 
under various conditions. All such schemes 
are either a waste of energy or an insult to 
the intelligence of the partner. There never 
can be an absolute rule for anything at whist, 
because each hand presents its own difficul- 
ties, which must be solved by the common- 
sense player in his own way. 

As a general principle of play it is best to 
discard the suit which you don't want your 
partner to lead ; but the player should be per- 
fectly free at all times to discard according to 
the best interests of his hand without any fear 
that his partner will be tempted to do some- 
thing foolish simply because a certain suit or 
a particular card has been discarded. 

Freedom in the discard enables a player to 
protect himself in many situations in which 
one who is bound to an arbitrary system can- 



102 Common Sense in Whist. 

not do so. Suppose your partner has led a 
suit, won by the player on your left, who leads 
trumps. You have to discard, and do not 
wish to give any information about your hand, 
so you discard your partner's suit: the top, 
bottom or intermediate, anything you please. 
This does not say which suit. is your best or 
your worst, but simply that you prefer to 
keep your trump-leading adversary guessing 
for the present. 

If you have two discards, and want to show 
your strong suit to your partner, you can 
usually do so by discarding both the others. 
This frequently follows a speculative lead 
from short trumps when your partner is able 
to continue them. If one suit has already 
been shown, especially by the adversaries, one 
discard will usually direct your partner to 
your best suit. If your best suit is known, a 
discard will show in which of the remaining 
suits you have the best chance of re-entr}^ A 
discard of your own suit, especially if estab- 
lished, should be a positive indication that 
you have a re-entry in the suit you keep, and 
will often show that it is not the ace, because 
you are keeping a guard to it. 

If your partner discards the same suit twice, 
it will usually be found that he does not care 
which of the others you lead to him. Under 
such circumstances you should select which- 



Discards. 103 

ever you are stronger in yourself, and, if you 
are playing for his hand, you should lead the 
best card in the suit, rei^ardless of number. 
If your partner discards the adversaries' suit, 
you may be pretty sure that he wants you to 
play your cards without any regard to him, as 
he is on the defensive. 

When you have a strong suit and some 
good trumps, it is useless to discard the suit 
and hug the trumps, because this involves the 
manifest absurdity of keeping your trumps to 
bring in a suit and at the same time throwing 
the suit away. The best plan is to ruff in at 
once, if your partner cannot help you, and 
then to force with your suit, if you are afraid 
to lead trumps after taking the force. 



The Short-Suit Game^ 



When your hand is so Imperfect that it con- 
tains no suit in which you can reasonably 
expect to make more than two tricks, it is not 
a long-suit hand, although it may be useful as 
a complement to your partner's hand if he 
has a suit worth playing for. 

If your hand is defective in a long suit, but 
contains re-entry cards or four trumps, it will 
usually be found the best policy to keep those 
cards quiet until you find out whether or not 
your partner has any use for them. We have 
already seen that a player with a chance to 
make a long suit should never willingly part 
with his re-entry cards until the time has 
come to use them, and we have also pointed 
out the importance of remembering that the 
defects in the leader's hand may be remedied 
in the partner's. Joining these two principles, 
it should be obvlor.s that a player who holds 
cards of re-entry should not willingly part 
with them until he knows that they will not be 
needed to protect a possible long suit in his 
partner's hand. 



The Short-Suit Game. 105 

To give up your trumps or re-entry cards 
when you have no suit to make, will usually 
be found to promote the adversaries' game. 
To lead winning cards from short suits is to 
establish the smaller cards of those suits 
against you, probably in the hands of the 
adversary. To exhaust the trumps without 
any suit to defend will probably remedy one 
of the most serious defects in the adversaries' 
hands, after which one force on you may 
enable them to make their hands perfect. 

When your plain suits are not played as 
long suits, and no attempt is made to estab- 
lish the smaller cards, the elements of success 
lie in the proper management of the high 
cards, especially in taking advantage of favor- 
able positions. A knowledge of these posi- 
tions leads us to distinguish between suits 
which it is desirable to lead, and those with 
which it is better to keep quiet. Short suits, 
or long suits played as short suits, the small 
cards not adding to their value, are of three 
kinds : Those which are strong in themselves ; 
those which are supporting to the partner ; 
and those which are worthless for any purpose. 

All suits in which you hold two honors 
only, especially if they are not in sequence, 
and all suits in which one of your two honors 
is the ten, must be opened at a disadvantage, 
so far as winning tricks with the high cards is 



io6 Common Sense in Whist. 

concerned, and npthing can be gained by 
opening such suits unless the rest of the hand 
is strong enough to justify the player in hop- 
in e to establish and defend the smaller cards 
and to bring them into play. If he has no 
such hope, and is not strong enough to look 
forward to making up for the loss of tricks 
in the high cards by a gain in the small cards, 
he is foolish to open such suits, because he 
runs the risk of loss, with no prospect of com- 
pensating gain. 

The recognition of this principle lies at 
the root of the difference between the long 
and the short-suit games. In the long-suit 
game the player knows that he is leading to a 
disadvantage, but hopes to make up for it. 
This is especially true of the trump suit, in 
which the chief object is to exhaust it, not to 
win tricks in it, and many tricks are un- 
doubtedly given up in the trump suit for the 
sake of getting it out of the way of the plain 
suit in which the tricks are to be taken back. 

In the short-suit game the player will not 
run the risk of losing tricks by injudicious 
openings, either in the plain suits or in the 
trumps, and declines to lead either of them at 
a disadvantage. He not only refuses to sacri- 
fice his chances for tricks with the hio^h cards 
of plain suits for problematical tricks with the 
small cards, but he also refuses to give up his 



The Short-Suit Game.- 107 

chances in the trump suit by leading it for no 
other purpose than to exhaust it. The whole 
object of the long-suit player is to make tricks 
in one suit ; the object of the short-suit player 
is to make tricks in all the suits. 

The short-suiter divides his suits into 
three classes : Those in which the lead is an 
advantage, such as suits headed by sequences ; 
those in which the lead is a disadvantage, 
such as suits headed by single honors and 
fourchettes ; and those which it is better to lead 
to your partner than to have him lead to you. 

In makine his selection, he must be ouided 
by his knovv^ledge of the probabilities of loss 
and eain, and the o-reat conundrum of modern 
whist is to decide whether you will lose more 
tricks by waiting to have suits led up to you 
in which you can win tricks by getting the 
best of the position, or by leading suits in 
which you cannot possibly take a trick, no 
matter who leads them. In the first case, you 
clearly hope to benefit yourself ; in the second 
case you run the risk of seriously injuring your 
partner or benefiting your adversaries. On 
which side does the balance of advantage lie ? 
In order to answer this question, it will be 
necessary to show the disadvantage of leading 
away from single honors and high cards not in 
sequence, and then to compare it with the dis- 
advantage of leadinor weak or worthless suits. 



Single-Honor Suits^ 



The first principle In the management of all 
short or weak suits is that of defence, and the 
first principle of defence is not to advance to 
the attack, but to let the enemy come and at- 
tack you. When there are certain positions 
that make no difference and others that do, 
you should remember the general principle 
that when you are on the defensive you must 
always assume that the position which is un- 
favorable to you is the one that exists. 
Take the case of single honors, not the ace. 
You must not play on the supposition that 
your partner has all the highest honors, but 
must assume that the position Is so unfavor- 
able that your honor may be caught. The 
number of times that this single honor will 
win a trick will usually depend on the number 
of times it can be defended ; that is, the num- 
ber of cards that accompany it, and also upon 
your keeping quiet. 

Under certain circumstances, this is per- 
fectly obvious to any whist player, but under 
very slightly changed conditions he will be 



Single-Honor Suits. 109 

perfectly blind to it. Suppose you hold queen 
and two small cards of a suit which is led 
through you, and that the player on your left 
wins with the ace. He evidently has not the 
king, which must be on your right or with 
your partner. The combination left in your 
hand is known as the second-best guarded, 
and any one will tell you that it is certainly 
good for a trick, bar trumping, provided you 
do not lead the suit. In suits which have been 
developed this is obvious, yet very few persons 
can be brought to understand that the same 
principle may be applied to unplayed suits if 
we alter the problem by substituting the prob- 
able positions of the better cards for their 
known or inferred positions. 

If you hold a singly guarded king, it is two 
to one that your partner does not hold the ace 
of that suit, and that you will lose your king 
if you lead it. If your king is led through, it 
is an even chance that your partner wins the 
first trick if you don't play the king. If he 
does not win it, it is an even chance that the 
ace will have to be played third hand, which 
will make your king good. If your partner 
leads the suit to you, one adversary having 
to play before you, it is two to one that your 
king wins the first trick, because either your 
partner or second hand may hold the ace. 
If the player on your left leads the suit to 



no Common Sense in Whist. 

you it is a certainty that your king will win 
the first or the second trick, bar trumping. 

Length in suit, without the addition of 
other honors, does not strengthen the suit a 
particle, and whether your king has one guard 
or six, the chances of saving are it practically 
the same, and it will always be two to one that 
you lose it if you lead it. If you lead a small 
card, you are simply leading away from the 
second-best guarded of a suit, and you must 
lose by it in the long run, although no lead is 
more common among those who do not under- 
stand the proper management of weak suits. 

It is obvious that if a small card is led, the 
leader is relying on his partner to win the 
trick, or to play such cards as will make the 
king good in the leader's hand, because there 
is no hope of winning a trick with the small 
card led. If we assume the most favorable 
condition, that the suit shall go round three 
times, or that it is the trump, so that your 
king cannot be lost by ruffing, and calculate 
all the possible distributions of the ace, queen 
and jack, we shall find that in looo deals your 

Partner will have no honor 240 times 

Partner will have one honor 540 times 

Partner will have two honors 210 times 

Partner will have three honors 10 times 

In these 1000 deals there will be ^000 tricks 



Sin^le-HojiOf' Suits. in 



"d) 



to play for with the honors, and you will find 
that with the best play on your part and the 
best defence on the adversaries', you always 
leading a small card of the suit, the number 
of tricks you will win will be about as follows : 



TIMES. 



You will will no trick 292 o 

You will win one trick 303 303 

You will win two tricks 321 642 

You will win three tricks 84 252 

Totals : 1000 ^^97 

While you are winning these 1200 tricks, 
your adversaries will gather in 1800, a differ- 
ence of 600 in their favor, or three to your 
two. 

What is true of the kine and small cards 
must be equally true of any other single honor 
except the ace, and in the case of the queen 
you and your partner will win only about 960 
tricks out of 3000. 

Now let us see what will happen if you do 
not open the suit, no matter who else does. 

If the player on your left leads the suit, 
there will be about 12 times in 1000 that he 
will lead the ace, and about 250 in 1000 that 
his partner will play the ace on the first round. 
If the player on your right has A Q J, or A Q, 
he will finesse, and your king will win the first 
round. This will not happen more than about 



112 Common Sense in Whist. 

once In twelve times. As your king must win 
on the second round, if not on the first, it will 
always be good for a trick, if the lead comes 
from your left. 

But your partner is still to be heard from. 
In about 520 deals in 1000 he will get a trick 
in the suit, and in about 156 he will get two. 
This will give you and your partner a total of 
about 1822 tricks out of 3000, no matter what 
card the player on your left leads, so that he 
opens the suit. 

If the player on your right leads, the odds 
are still in your favor for getting more tricks 
in the suit than your adversaries. It is taken 
for granted that in no case will you put up 
the king second hand on the first lead, nor on 
the second unless the ace is played. If the 
king is three times guarded, it cannot be lost 
so long as you refuse to play it second hand, 
and are not killed by being made third hand. 
If all the positions are examined, and the 
adversaries are given the benefit of every 
legitimate finesse, It will be found that you 
and your partner will get about 1644 tricks 
out of the 3000 to be played for, If your right 
hand adversary opens the suit for you. 

If your partner opens the suit, your posi- 
tion is not so favorable ; because he will often 
kill your king, and will enable the adversaries 
to hold over him to his disadvantage. If 



Single-Honor Suits. 113 

your partner opens the suit, you and he will 
get only about 1290 tricks out of 3000. This 
will make the grand total when you do not 
lead away from the single honor, the king : — 

If the lead comes from your left, 1822 

If the lead comes from your right, 1644 

If the lead comes from your partner, 1290 



Total : — 4756 

That is, out of 9000 tricks you will get 4756 
to your adversaries' 4244, a difference of 512 
in your favor. Reduced to 1000 deals, this 
would leave you about 170. We found that 
if you led a suit headed by a king, the adver- 
sary got the- best of it by 600 tricks. By 
simply not leading the suit yourself, you not 
only wipe out that advantage, but turn it in 
your own favor by 171 tricks; showing a 
total of 770 tricks in 3000 saved simply by not 
leading from a suit headed by a king. 

It is obvious that if your partner were con- 
vinced of the disadvantage of leading from 
suits headed by cards not in sequence, many 
more tricks mi^ht be gained if he also would 
refuse to lead the suit ; but in the foregoing 
calculations we have assumed that he did lead 
it, regardless of the combination he held. 
The same is of course true of the other 
players. 



114 Common Sense in Whist. 

In plain suits the same number of tricks 
would of course be impossible, because the 
suit will not go round three times more than 
158 times in 1000 ; but the principle of play 
and the proportion of the result is still about 
the same for the number of tricks that are 
made, and the losses that arise from leading 
suits headed by single honors are in the same 
ratio. 

When the suit contains more than one 
honor, the disadvantage of leading it is 
equally apparent, unless the honors are the ace 
and king. In suits headed by A Q 10, it can 
be demonstrated that if the ace is led first, 
even if the suit ooes round three times, the 
partners will win only 190 tricks in 100 deals. 
If a small card is led first, they will win 220. 
If the suit is led by any other player on the 
first round, and the player holding the double 
fourchette is obliged to lead it for the second, 
they will make 233. But if the suit is led 
twice by any other player the partners will 
make 254 tricks in it, which shows a difference 
of 64 tricks in 100 deals between leading the 
best card of a double fourchette, and not lead- 
ing it at all. 

In this combination, you hold a certain 
trick in the suit, the ace ; but in all weaker 
combinations of high cards which are not in 
sequence, such as K J, K 10, and Q 10, you 



Single-Honor Suits. 1 1 5 

have no such advantage, and the losses that 
arise simply from leading such suits are even 
greater than in leading from suits headed by 
the major tenace. 

The most unfortunate leads are those from 
cards not in sequence in plain suits in which 
your partner turns out to have nothing at all. 
If you lead from a suit headed by a single 
honor, not the ace, or two honors not in se- 
quence, and find your partner with nothing 
higher than a 9, you w^l be very lucky if you 
ever get a trick out of the suit yourself. The 
most favorable position with any combination 
of high cards not in sequence, is to be the last 
player on the trick, especially if you hold a 
fourchette. The next best position is to be 
third hand, with only one adversary to play 
after you. 



Worthless Suits^ 



If you hold a sequence of winning cards in 
a suit, such as A K Q, your hand is good for 
three tricks, bar trumping, no matter who 
leads the suit. You do not care whether you 
lead the suit yourself, whether your partner 
leads it to you, or whether it is led up to you 
or through you. There is no advantage in 
your position, and nothing that your partner 
could do would be of any material assistance 
to you. 

If your cards are not In the best, but still In 
sequence, the lead Is only a slight advantage, 
and only when partner holds the best card of 
the suit, and can pass your leading cards. 
The best example of this Is when you hold 
Q J lo, your partner holding the A over the 
K on your left. 

These considerations lead us to three con- 
clusions : I. If you have a. sequence of win- 
ning cards In any suit. It does not matter 
much what your partner does. 2. If you 
have high cards which are not In sequence, It 
is better for your partner to lead the suit to 



V/o rth less Su its. 117 

you than for you to lead it yourself. 3. If 
you have nothing in a suit it is important that 
your partner should be prevented from lead- 
ing that suit to you, and the only way to pre- 
vent that is for you to lead the suit to him. 

We have settled that the lead from se- 
quence is an advantage ; that the lead from 
cards not in sequence is a disadvantage ; and 
that the lead from single honors is the worst 
of all ; but we have still to examine the result 
of leading suits in which you hold nothing at 
all. So far as we have gone, we have found 
that it is good policy to lead from sequences 
of winning cards, but bad policy to lead from 
suits in which your tricks are only problemati- 
cal. How about leading suits in which there 
is no problem, and in which you could not 
win a trick under any circumstances ? 

There are two great advantages in leading 
weak suits, that is to say, suits in which it is 
very improbable that you can ever take a 
trick. The first is that you avoid disadvan- 
tageous leads from other suits. The second is 
that you prevent your partner from leading 
suits in which you have nothing. There is 
also a third advantage, giving partner oppor- 
tunities for finesse. 

In order to agree with the first proposition : 
that to lead from a suit in which you cannot 
expect to take a trick must be better than a 



ii8 Common Sense iji Whist. 

lead from a suit in which you have some 
hopes of a trick, you must be satisfied that it 
is a losing game to lead from suits headed by 
single honors ; this we have attempted to 
demonstrate. 

In order to agree with the second proposi- 
tion ; you must be satisfied that it is better 
for a player to be third hand than to be the 
leader in a suit in which his partner has 
nothing. Some persons might think this was 
self-evident, but it is not. 

The example that will immediately spring 
to the mind of an experienced whist player is 
that of third hand holding king and small 
cards of a suit which his partner leads to him, 
holding nothing. This is one of the stock 
arguments against leading weak suits ; that if 
third hand holds the king it is killed ; but if 
any one else leads the suit the king wins a 
trick. It is a pity to dispel this long-cherished 
illusion ; but the fact is that exactly the 
contrary is the case. If your partner has no 
possible trick in the suit, and yet leads it, your 
king will win exactly half the time, because 
the ace is just as likely to be on one side of 
you as on the other. If the suit is led by the 
player on your right, your king will never 
win a trick on the first round, and it will never 
win a trick on the second round either unless 
your adversaries have been foolish enough to 



Worthless Suits. 1 19 

place themselves at a disadvantage by leading 
from fourchettes or sinorle honors. At the 
best it will win only once in six times on the 
second round, and it is very rarely that it will 
live to take a trick on the third round ; 
partly because the adversaries will discover 
that you have it, and finesse against you ; and 
partly because in the great majority of cases 
the third round of the suit will be trumped. 

If the player on your left leads the suit, 
the kinof must of course win the first or second 
trick ; but if he knows the disadvantage of 
leadine from single honors, and honors not in 
sequence, he will never lead the suit up to 
you, and your king will never make, except 
when Q J 10 are on your left, and the ace on 
your right. 

This brings us to the question of the proper 
card to lead from weak suits and the proper 
play of the third hand when such a suit Is led. 

As it is important to give the partner a 
finesse If possible, and imperative to give him 
a warning, the top card of a weak suit should 
always be led, unless that card may be good 
for a trick, such as an ace or king, or a doubly 
guarded queen. If the card is not high 
enough to warn him, being lower than an 
eight, for instance, the cards that fall on the 
first round will usually show him that you 
cannot hold two honors in the suit. He may 



120 Common Sense in Whist. 

also be able to place a smaller card In your 
hand, which will show him that you have not 
led the lowest of a strong suit. 

The best leads from short suits are support- 
ing cards in sequence, such as Q J lo ; three- 
card suits headed by Q J, J lo, or lo 9. The 
best two-card suits are those headed by some 
card from the queen to the eight. Three-card 
suits not headed by the ten at least, should 
never be led, because such suits neither offer 
the partner a finesse nor give you an oppor- 
tunity of ruffing them on the third round. If 
you have nothing but three-card suits you 
cannot ruff anything, and the best defensive 
lead will usually be found to be the trump, 
which will at least have the advantage of re- 
taining your partner's confidence that you will 
never lead from a weak suit of more than two 
cards in which you can accomplish nothing. 
The importance of this principle of leading 
suits which are as short as possible will be 
more evident when we come to discuss the 
play of the third hand in finesse, and in hold- 
ing up the command of weak suits led to him 
by his partner. 

Whenever you have opened a weak suit 
from the top, always play it down, following 
with the next higher card, whether In leading, 
In following suit, or in discarding. An ex- 
ception may be made when the second-best 



Worthless Suits. I2I 

card may be good for a trick, such as a jack 
guarded when the queen has forced the king. 
Many persons make the mistake of leading 
winning cards instead of supporting cards 
from weak suits. They will not lead a ten 
from ten and another for fear of establishinor 
the suit in the hands of the adversary, but 
they will lead an ace from ace and four small 
without stopping to think that this is just as 
likely to clear a suit for the adversary as a ten 
lead would be. 



Leading up to Strength* 



The great objection made to the lead of a 
weak suit is that you are liable to lead right 
up to strength in hand of your right hand ad-^ 
versary, and that the weaker the suit you 
lead, the greater the chance that he is strong 
in it. This sounds well, but careful investi- 
gation will usually show that it is a^fallacy, 
like many other generally received things in 
whist. 

We have already seen that the stronger 
you are in a suit, especially if you have a se- 
quence in it, the less difference it makes to 
you where the lead comes from, and the less 
advantageous it is to you to have it come 
from any particular quarter instead of from 
another, even from your left. This being so, 
if the player on your right has a very strong 
suit, headed, let us say, by A K Q, or K Q J, 
you do not give him the slightest advantage 
by leading the suit up to him. If he has the 
tenace, A Q, you do not give him any advan- 
tage that he would not have had in any case 
if you have nothing in the suit, provided he 



Leading up to St?'ength. 123 

understands how to manage tenace suits. 
He will not lead such a suit himself, and if his 
partner leads it he will finesse, and it should 
be obvious that the finesse must be successful 
if you have nothing. 

If the player on your right has tenace, your 
partner cannot have anything but honors 
which are not in sequence, and if he leads 
away from them he places himself at a serious 
disadvantage, which you will warn him against 
by leading the suit yourself. If you do not 
lead it, and he is not warned, and leads, the 
trick will probably be won by the player on 
3^our left, who will at once discover that his 
partner holds tenace over your partner ; in- 
formation that he will proceed to take advan- 
tage of immediately, and information, it should 
be observed, that he would not have been 
possessed of, nor in the position to take ad- 
vantage of, had you opened the suit first. 

Observation and analysis of a great number 
of hands has led to the conclusion that the 
true secret of the losses from leading weak 
suits is that such a lead often prevents the 
fourth hand from playing as badly as he is ac- 
customed to play. Take the case of one who 
has never studied the value of tenace, or who 
does not realize the importance of avoiding 
the lead from tenace suits. He is just as 
likely as not to lead away from a tenace, and 



124 Common Sense in Whist. 

if he has five cards he will probably make the 
worst lead of all, and begin with the ace. 

For the sake of arcrument we will assume 
that such a lead is admitted to be bad, and is 
bound to lose in the long run. By leading 
such a suit up to such a player you prevent him 
from playing badly, because you force him to 
make the best use of his tenace, and prevent 
him from leading away from it. In other words, 
it is not so much that your lead of the weak 
suit will lose tricks as it is that the lead may 
prevent a badly taught player from giving 
them to you. 

The greatest advantage you can give an ad- 
versary by leading a weak suit up to him is 
when his only honor is the king because you 
are certain to make the king good, either on 
that trick or the next. At the first si^rht 
this seems to be a strong point against the 
weak lead, but let us look into the matter a 
little. In the first place, how many times in 
a hundred deals will the player hold only one 
honor, the king, when 3'^ou have nothing ? 
And if he has it, what advantage do you give 
him that he would not have in any case ? We 
must assume that he is a good player, which 
will eliminate the chance of his leading away 
from his king, and so giving you tricks. If 
he is a player who will lead away from single 
honors, you prevent him from making that 



Leading up to Strength, 



125 



mistake, by practically forcing him to play 
better than he knows, and so compelling him 
to get the full benefit of the combination he 
holds. But if he will not give you tricks by 
bad leading, what additional advantage do 
you give him ? The remaining honors may 
be distributed in eight different ways, as fol- 
lows, you being A in every case, with no 
honor, leading up to Z who holds the king; — 



No. 


A 


Y 


B 


Z 


I 


- 


AQJ 


- 


K 


2 


- 


AQ 


J 


K 


3 


- 


AJ 


Q 


K 


4 


- 


A 


QJ 


K 


5 


~ 


Q J 


A 


K 


6 


- 


Q 


AJ 


K 


7 


- 


J 


AQ 


K 


8 


- 




AQJ 


K 



These distributions are not equally probable, 
any of them being three times as likely as the 
first and the last. Just look these positions 
over, and see what the positions are in which 
you would make more by not leading the 
suit if you were sure that Z would never lead 
it. How many times w^ill Z lose his king just 
because you do not lead the suit up to him ? 
If you are honest with yourself you will have 
to confess that the only circumstances under 
which he could lose his kina if the suit went 
round twice without trumping, would be when 



126 



Conunoii Sense in Whist. 



he was foolish enough to lead the suit him- 
self. 

If we take the case of leading up to a queen, 
the result is exactly the same if the player 
with the queen has two guards to it, and will 
not lead the suit himself. Look at the fol- 
lowing distributions of the cards, and see if 
there is any case in which the queen will not 
make equally whether you lead the suit up to 
it or not. 



No. 


A 


Y 


B 


Z 


I 


— 


AK J 


- 


Q 


2 


— 


AK 


J 


Q 


3 


— 


AJ 


K 


Q 


4 


- 


KJ 


A 


Q 


5 


- 


A 


KJ 


Q 


6 


- 


K 


AJ 


Q 


7 


_ 


J 


AK 


Q 


8 


- 




AKJ 


Q 



Leading Aces^ 



There is an absolute trick-losing element 
in leading the aces of plain suits ; because 
such a lead informs the table that the king is 
good for the. second trick. At first sight this 
may not appear to be of much importance, as 
it affects only the second hand, but the tricks 
lost by it run into large figures in the course 
of time. 

If you lead the ace with four others of the 
same suit in your hand, you must remember 
that it is impossible for the suit to go round 
three times, and that it is two to one against 
your partner being the one to trump the third 
round. The suit will q-q round twice about six 
times in ten, and your play should be so ad- 
justed as to get those two tricks if you can. If 
you go reaching after three tricks you are 
playing against probability, and if you play so 
that the adversaries will be more likely to get 
one of the two tricks than you will, you are 
playing against yourself. 

Your chances for two tricks in a suit in 
which you have only the ace, no matter how 



128 Coimnon Sense in W J list. 

many small cards, are twofold. In the first 
place your partner may have the king. This 
will happen just 336 times in 1008, and it 
would not matter whether you began with the 
ace or a small card. But if you begin with 
the ace, there are 672 times that the adver- 
saries will hold the king, and no matter which 
of them holds it he will put it on the second 
round, because he knows it is good. But if 
you begin with a small card there are only 84 
times in these 672 that the player on your 
left would put up the king, and these would 
be when he held both king and queen, or king, 
queen, jack. His partner will hold the king 
336 times, which leaves 252 in which the king 
would be against you but not played to the 
first trick. These 252 positions are as follows, 
you being A and your partner B. 

A Y B Z TIMESIN 

1008 

A KJ Q - 36 

A KJ - Q 36 

A K QJ - 36 

A K - QJ 36 

A K Q J 54 

A K J Q 54 

252 

If these six positions are examined, it will 
be evident that in exactly half of them your 
partner will get the first trick if you begin 
with a low card, and you will get the second 



Leading Aces. 129 

with the ace ; but in not a single one of them 
would you get the second trick if you led the 
ace first, because the player on your left 
would know his king was good, and your part- 
ner could not get a trick with the queen un- 
less the suit went round three times, and this 
is impossible if you held five originally. But 
if you begin with the small card there are 126 
cases in which it will be your adversary that 
will be unable to get a trick unless the suit 
goes round three times. For this, it must be 
noticed, he has a chance, as his partner would 
not trump his king ; but you have no such 
chance, as it must be an adversary that is 
short of the suit if your partner holds the 
queen until the third round. 

If we sum up the whole matter, it would 
appear that out of 1008 times that your only 
honor in a plain suit is the ace, and that the 
suit goes round twice, there are only 336 
times that you will get two tricks if you begin 
with the ace, and these are the times that 
your partner has the king. But if you be- 
gin with the small cards there are 462 chances 
for you to get the first two tricks ; the 336 
that your partner has the king, and the 126 
that your partner will have the queen, and the 
king not being played second hand on the 
first round. 

Dr. Pole investigated this lead both mathe- 



130 Common Sense in Whist. 

matically and experimentally, many years ago, 
and found that in 200 deals one trick would 
be made 96 times by leading ace first ; and 
84 times only by leading a small card first. 
His results have been widely quoted, but it 
has never been clearly enough stated that his 
experiments were as to saving or losing the 
ace itself, and took no account of the partner's 
possibilities as a trick-winner. The point that 
all writers on this much-mooted question have 
overlooked, and which has been so strongly 
insisted on by the N. Y. Sun, in its descrip- 
tions of the common-sense game, is that while 
it may be better to lead the small card than 
to be^in with the ace, it is better still not to 
lead the suit at all, except as a resource, in 
hands which ofi'er no good supporting card 
lead from a short suit. 



The Third Hand* 



In the long-suit game, the general princi- 
ples of play for the third hand are compara- 
tively simple. The object is to establish the 
suit, and as the original leader is supposed to 
be long in it the best policy for the third hand 
is to put up his best cards in the hope of 
catching the intermediate cards held by the 
adversaries. Unless the leader and his part- 
ner hold A K Q between them, or can catch 
the queen in two leads, it is obviously impos- 
sible to make more than two tricks in the 
suit without a finesse of some kind, but except 
in the case of ace queen in third hand, this 
finesse should always be left to the player 
who is strong in the suit, the original leader. 
Third hand should never finesse the jack 
from ace jack or king jack, but should invari- 
ably play the higher card and return the jack, 
regardless of number, so as to give the orig- 
inal leader the finesse. It can be demon- 
strated that this play will win more tricks in 
the long run than either the finesse by third 
hand or the return of a small card when hold- 
ing jack and two others. 



132 Common Sense in Whist. 

The return of the higher of only two small 
cards remaining, so as to support the partner; 
leading back one of the second and third-best, 
and always returning the ace before opening 
another suit unless to lead trumps, are princi- 
ples too well known to need repetition in a 
work of this kind. But the play of the third 
hand on supporting cards is quite another 
story, because the conditions are exactly re- 
versed, and it is the third hand that is sup- 
posed to be stronger in the suit and to do all 
the finesslna-. 

The fewer cards the leader holds in the 
suit the better for you If you are going to 
finesse, because the success of finesse in plain 
suits depends very largely on the number of 
times that the suit will go round without 
affording to the adversaries an opportunity to 
trump the high cards which you hold up In 
finessing. If you are not going to finesse, the 
longer the suit in your partner's hand the 
better it will be for both of you, because if he 
has five or six. It Is extremely likely that one 
adversary will be very short, which will In- 
crease the chances of your catching a high 
card If you do not finesse. Another point is 
that It Is very Improbable that the adversaries 
can make more than one or two tricks in such 
a suit, because there are so few cards left of 
it to distribute between them. 



TJie Third Hand. 1 33 

These considerations naturally suggest two 
entirely different systems of managing weak 
suits, and the leader's selection must depend 
on his confidence in his partner. If the third 
hand knows little or nothing of the principles 
of finessing, and will go right up with the best 
card he holds third hand, it is folly to lead 
him supporting cards, and nothing can be 
worse than to lead him a short suit. If you 
lead him a suit in which you have nothing 
yourself, not even length, and he is going to 
give up the best card he has in it on the first 
round, you are simply promoting the value of 
all the cards that the adversaries hold in that 
suit, and establishing it for them unless your 
partner has both ace and king, or an ace-queen 
finesse, in which case it does not matter much 
what you do. 

For the same reasons It Is useless to lead to 
such a partner the top of a long weak suit. 
If you have five cards to the ten, there is 
nothing to be gained by leading him the ten 
if he is going to put on his best card in any 
case, regardless of second hand's play. The 
only possible use of supporting cards is to give 
partner a finesse, and if the partner will not 
take the finesse, the supporting card is simply 
wasted, and It would be much better to keep It 
on the chance of orettlne a trick with it later on. 

If, on the contrary, partner is one of those 



134 Covimon Sense in Whist. 

that will finesse, and finesse deeply and often, 
it is bad policy to lead him a supporting card 
from the top of a long suit, because you are 
inviting him to hold up high cards which will 
probably be lost through being trumped, all 
finesse being disadvantageous in plain suits in 
which the adversaries are short. 

There are three principal positions for the 
third hand : When he holds two high cards in 
sequence, when he holds fourchettes, and 
when he holds single honors. In each of 
these his play must be governed by two con- 
siderations : self-protection, and the desirabil- 
ity of having the lead himself or of allowing 
it to come from the ricrht or left for the next 
trick. If you are weak in the other suits, and 
the second hand covers a supporting card led, 
it will often be advantageous to let that player 
open another suit to possible strength in your 
partner's hand. The reverse of this would be 
to have the lead come from the left, through 
the possible strength to your weakness. If 
you are strong, especially if you hold four- 
chettes in the other suits, it will be an advan- 
tage to have the next lead come from your 
left, and you should play accordingly. This 
consideration of the position of the next lead 
will constantly modify your play when you 
hold certain combinations in suits in which 
your partner leads supporting cards. 



TJie TJiii'd Hand. 135 

With two honors in sequence, such as A K, 
K O, Q J, or J 10, one of these cards should 
be played unless you have a finesse against 
two cards being in one hand against 3^ou, and 
it should always be remembered that the odds 
acjainst such a combination are three to one. 
With king queen on a ten led and not covered 
by second hand, the finesse is against both ace 
and jack being on your left. If it is desirable 
to have the next lead come from your left, 
take the finesse ; otherwise play the queen. 

With ace and king, cover everything but a 
queen, but do not lead back the ace. It is 
folly to pass a jack or ten with both ace and 
king in your hand unless you are strong 
enough to play for more than two tricks in 
the suit. With A K J and small, do not make 
the common mistake of winning the trick just 
to go on with the suit and give your partner 
discards unless you are strong enough to 
manage the hand yourself, because that queen 
may be a feeler, and if it is allowed to win, 
your partner may have a great game behind 
it which you will spoil if you take the lead 
away from him. Many good scores are lost 
by players taking the lead when they do not 
particularly w^ant it. 

With queen jack and others, cover anything 
but a ten led, so as to force ace or king on 
your left and leave yourself with the second- 



136 Common Sense in Whist. 

best guarded. With the jack ten and others, 
cover anything but a nine. 

With single honors, unless you want the 
lead, and are quite sure you know what you 
are doing, pass everything, especially if the 
second hand covers. When a jack is led, 
covered second hand by the queen, many 
players make the mistake of putting on the 
king, which is about the only way to lose it. 
If second hand is a good player he cannot 
hold the ace and finesse against his partner by 
putting on the queen, so the ace must be be- 
hind you, and unless you have only one guard 
to the king or have the ten or nine with it, you 
should never put on the king third hand under 
such circumstances. 

With the ace, pass always, unless you want 
the lead. This retains the command of the 
suit in which your partner warns you he has 
nothing, and which must therefore be the 
adversaries'. If the second hand covers the 
card led and you pass it, he will have to do 
one of two things: open a new suit to your 
partner's possible strength, or continue the 
one opened, upon which you can put up the 
ace and lead a third round in the full assur- 
ance that your partner can ruff it, or he. may 
get a discard on your ace, showing in which 
of the unplayed suits he is stronger. 

With queen and others, unless you have a 



TJie Third Hand. 137 

fourchette, perfect or Imperfect, over the card 
with which the second hand covers, pass the 
trick always. Both king and ace cannot be 
on your right and you must lose the queen if 
you put it on. 

With fourchettes, such as ace queen, king 
jack, or queen ten, take the finesse always un- 
less you are anxious for the lead, in which 
case you may make an exception in the case 
of king jack and others. Even if you lose 
your king you remain with the second-best 
guarded. 

With imperfect fourchettes, ace jack and 
king ten, always take the finesse with king 
ten and always pass the trick altogether with 
ace jack, even if second hand covers, because 
that is the only way to retain the command of 
the suit and get two tricks out of it at the 
same time. More tricks are probably lost by 
bad management of the ace-jack combination 
in third hand on a supporting card led than 
in any other position at the whist table. 

If you have ace jack and small and second 
hand passes such a card as an eight or nine, 
it may be fairly assumed that he has not both 
king and queen, although there are some 
players who do not cover with that combina- 
tion. If both these cards are not on your 
right, either one of them may be there, or on 
your left, or both of them may be on your 



138 Common Sense in Whist. 

left. These positions are not equally prob- 
able, the odds being three to one against both 
cards being in one hand. 

It is evident from this that if second hand 
does not cover, the card led will not win the 
first trick ; but it is still more certain that 
your jack will not win it ; nor will it win the 
second and very seldom the third if you play 
the ace on the first round. The point to ob- 
serve is, that without a finesse of some kind 
the ace is the only possible trick in the suit, 
and that if the jack is played to the first trick 
it is thrown away ; while if the ace is played, 
the suit is practically abandoned to the adver- 
saries. If the second hand plays either king 
or queen, and you have more than three cards 
in the suit, it is perhaps safer to play the ace, 
and hope for a trick with the second-best 
guarded. 

If the ace is not played to the first round, 
there are two things to consider: the risk of 
losing it by its being trumped, and the ad- 
visability of taking the finesse of the jack on 
the second round. 

As to the risk of losing both ace and jack 
by the suit being ruffed, which is the thing 
most players are afraid of, everything depends 
on the number of cards held by the original 
leader. If you have three and he had two 
only, the remainder of the suit may be dis- 



The Third Hand. 1 39 

tributed In five different ways and still go 
round twice, and there are only four distribu- 
tions of the suit which will allow the adversa- 
ries to trump the first or second round. If 
they can ruff the first round, your ace is gone 
in any case. The probability of these distri- 
butions is 853 to 40, and those are the odds 
that the suit will cro round twice at least. Out 
of these 893 distributions there are 741 in 
which the suit will go round three times, 
which is the most favorable condition for suc- 
cessful finessing. It Is therefore evident that 
the odds are about seven to one against your 
losing your ace, even if you keep it up until 
the third round. 

Although you may start out with this theory 
as a general principle of play, you will of 
course be ready to depart from it if the fall of 
the cards shows that the finesse would be ab- 
surd. If the second hand has none of the 
suit, for instance, and passes the doubtful 
trick, to hold up the ace would be folly. If 
second hand plays a nine on a ten, the finesse 
would be very doubtful if second hand is a 
good player, for he cannot have an honor and 
the nine only, or he would cover. 

If either you or your partner have more 
cards in the suit, your chances are not quite 
so good. If you have four, for instance, the 
suit will fail to go round twice about 13 times 



140 Coinmon Sense in Whist, 

in 100, but it does not follow that the adver- 
sary will trump it every time, and even if he 
does, it does not follow that you will lose your 
ace, for his partner must be very long in the 
suit, and your ace will prove a great stopper 
and the force may break up the player taking 
it. 

If you play the ace the first round you must 
assume that it is the only trick you will get in 
the suit; but if ^^ou do not play it, you must 
have the courage to hold it up and finesse the 
jack on the second round also, or you sur- 
render the advantage you have gained. 
There are only six cases out of twenty-four in 
which the jack will not win the second round 
of the suit, no matter who leads it, provided 
you remember the golden rule of tenace play 
and do not lead the suit yourself. 

If you will balance up the account, you will 
find that if you play the ace the first time you 
will get just 100 tricks in 100 deals, neither 
more nor less. Playing the small card the 
first time, finessing the jack the second you 
will get 141 even if the adversaries never pass 
a trick. In actual play you will find that the 
finesse will yield about 166 tricks in 100 deals. 

With the king jack and small third hand, 
the supporting card led being anything below 
a ten, the jack should always be played unless 
the second hand puts up the ace or queen. 



The Third Hand. 141 

The whole question depends upon the posi- 
tion of these two cards, ace and queen, and 
there are four distributions possible, which 
are as follows, with the number of times they 
will occur in 1000, the third hand being B : 



No 


A Y 


B Z, 


Times. 


Playing 
King. 


Finessing. 
Jack. 


I 
2 

3 

4 


- AQ 

- A 

- Q 


KJ - 
KJ AQ 
KJ Q 
KJ A 

Totals : 


214 
214 

286 

286 

1000 


214 


428 


286 
286 
786 


286 

286 

1000 



The only position which makes a difference 
is the first, and agreeably to the general princi- 
ples of finesse we must always assume that it 
is the one that exists. If your partner has 
two of the suit only, and you have three, the 
chances for the suit to go round three times 
are about seven out of eight, which will give 
you plenty of room to fi.nesse. If the king is 
played to the first round, that is the only 
possible trick in the suit, unless the adversa- 
ries are very bad players, and make your jack 
good by leading through your partner's weak- 
ness up to your strength ; but we must not 
calculate on bad play to give us tricks. If the 
jack is finessed in every instance it will make 
no difference except in the first position, in 
which it will gain 214 tricks in 1000 deals. 



142 Couiiiion Sense in WJiist, 

So that while we found it to be bad policy 
to finesse the jack from king jack and small 
with a long suit player for a partner, exactly 
the contrary is the case when the partner 
leads the top of nothing. The chief lesson to 
be learned from this difference is the impor- 
tance of knowing when it is the top of nothing 
that is led, as distinguished from the bottom 
of a long suit containing honors, and the 
importance of third hand's knowing the differ- 
ence in his play required by the difference in 
the circumstances. 

It cannot be too strongly Impressed on the 
student that the lead itself is seldom or never 
responsible for the loss of tricks ; it is always 
the failure of the third hand to adapt himself 
to the true circumstances of the case. The 
great trouble with most persons who play, or 
think they play, supporting cards, is that their 
partners don't know hov/ to follow out the 
theory, and throw away the advantages arising 
from the position. Then they condemn the 
" short-suit game," as they call it, and say it is 
all nonsense. 



The Second Hand* 



There are two very common mistakes made 
by modern players in handling certain com- 
binations of high cards second hand. The 
first and most important is in finessing against 
their partners, and the second is in failing to 
protect themselves. 

In the long-suit game, playing on small 
cards led, the second hand should always play 
in the smallest card of any combination of 
hiorh cards from which he would lead a hio;h 
card, if he had to lead the suit. This rule 
should be extended to ace and four others, 
even if one is the queen, and the ace should 
always be put on, because modern players 
will not open a small card from a suit of less 
than five cards, and it is impossible for such a 
suit to go round twice if 3^ou have five also. 
The same is true of king and four small, and 
many tricks may be saved by putting up the 
king second hand on a small card led, if the 
player has a good lead for the second trick. 
The only danger is that your partner's ace 
may fall on your king. 



144 Common Sense in Whist. 

The second hand should always cover sup- 
porting cards if he holds a fourchette, perfect 
or imperfect ; but it is not worth while to 
cover with an imperfect fourchette smaller 
than queen nine over a jack led. The third 
hand will not finesse if he holds ace king, 
and if he does not hold both, your partner can 
win the trick without your assistance. 

If second hand holds ace queen and others, 
and a jack is led, the ace should be played 
every time, there still being a chance for the 
queen, which is the second best guarded, to 
win a trick. To put the queen on the jack is 
to finesse against your partner, because the 
king must be behind you. If second hand 
holds queen jack and a ten is led, it should 
be covered, because the odds are against third 
hand holding both ace and king, and if he has 
king only he must either allow your jack to 
win or sacrifice his king to 3^our partner's ace. 
If he has the ace, he must allow jack to win 
or abandon the command of the suit to your- 
self and your partner. 

With sinole honors second hand, either on 

<z> ' 

the first or second round of the suit, never 
finesse against your partner if you know the 
higher card is behind you, because your cards 
may fall together. If you have nothing better 
than a supporting card second hand, such as 
the ten, and are short in the suit, always put 



The Second Hand, 145 

It on ; It may save valuable cards In your part- 
ner's hand. With one honor and one small 
card, cover all supporting leads, unless your 
honor Is the ace. The play of the higher 
card first will warn your partner that you have 
done all you can to protect him In the suit. 

Many players extend this principle of play- 
ing weak suits down to all cases in which they 
hold two cards only, and are unable to hope 
for a trick In the suit. If such conventions 
as the trump signal are not used, there can be 
no mistaking the object of the play, and any 
common-sense partner can see that it is in- 
tended as a warning. When two partners 
play down in this manner, If the suit is led 
again, the weaker trump hand should take the 
force, and the player that passes should be 
credited with at least four trumps. Some 
players extend this principle to cards that win 
the trick, and will play ace and lead king to 
show they are out of the suit, and willing to 
ruff the third round. 

If the adversaries attempt to catch any 
good cards in your hand by playing support- 
ing cards through you, make them catch them ; 
never give them up. Suppose you hold king 
and small cards and the player on your right 
leads through you with queen and jack. Don't 
give up your king until it Is the only card left, 
or your cards become fourchette, because it is 



146 Coimnon Sense in Whist. 

always possible that the third hand, even if he 
holds the ace, may not have enough guards to 
it to pass two rounds, and will have to free 
your king. 



There are, of course, many thousands of 
interesting positions which will arise in play- 
ing the common-sense game, which it is im- 
possible even to touch upon in a work of this 
kind. The general principles here laid down 
are based upon playing in accordance with 
probability, instead of striving after the im- 
possible. There are plays that will win in cer- 
tain hands, but if they will not win in the 
majority they must be unsound, and if per- 
sisted in they must lose. 

The solid principles of whist, If mastered 
and followed faithfully, are strong enough to 
win against any system of arbitrary conven- 
tions, especially when the meaning of those 
conventions is known to the adversaries. In- 
stead of trying to play by rule of thumb and 
depending on a partner's direction, the student 
should regard every hand as a problem in it- 
self, and the finding of the proper solution will 
then be a pleasant intellectual exercise instead 
of a laborious attempt to follow out a mechani- 
cal routine, 



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